Rissington Breedline traceability & productivity project

Imagine that you could select your lamb chops based on where the animal came from and how it was farmed. Food safety is paramount for European consumers, but they also care about sustainable farming and animal welfare. Rissington Breedline, a NZ sheep and beef genetics company, is supplying UK retail chain Marks and Spencer with lamb that has the farmer’s name on the pack. But that’s just the beginning.

In the future, the RBL traceability project will be able to provide retail customers with the full story about the product. The project brings together existing technologies – radio-frequency identification ear-tags, electronic scales, and automatic drafters that read the ear-tag information and can separate sheep into different groups as required – capturing the data on a handheld computer, and giving the farmer a set of reports while in the yards. Data is sent to a central database via broadband. The database integrates information on the ewe flock, such as weight, treatments received, and pregnancy status – creating an individual history for each animal, allowing the farmer to optimise flock management.

Rissington Breedline has a vision of creating value along the supply chain. High-quality information enables farmers to make smarter decisions. Broadband connectivity is essential. ‘Lack of broadband is a massive inhibitor to farms’ productivity,’ says Rissington’s NZ General Manager Alastair Nelson. ‘We need to get broadband out to our farmers.’ Ultimately, traceability will be extended to meat processing, providing information on yield so farmers can match carcase characteristics to an animal’s management history – and offer an assurance of quality to the consumer.

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