New traceability program soon to be available for Canadian sheep farmers

The Canadian Sheep Federation’s (CSF) AgroLedger, a digital traceability program, is launching a pilot program for early adopters before its sector-wide release. 

The CFS-funded program will be made available at no cost to Canadian sheep producers to bring them in line with future government regulatory amendments, which close the loop on full traceability.

Why it matters: To meet the increasing demands of government regulation, sheep farmers now require a centralized end-to-end supply chain traceability system for their sheep flocks.

“We understand that all the users, farmers included, are going to face a lot more work in terms of meeting regulations. The ultimate goal here is to make that easier, less complex, less work wherever possible for producers,” said Corlena Patterson, CSF executive director.

“But also, to keep traceability in the hands of the sheep farmers so that we are not at the mercy of service providers or other groups to dictate cost, price or program direction.”

While AgroLedger will be the underpinning system to meet traceability regulations, it will provide producers with real-time critical disease information and valuable performance data, which will inform herd management decisions, improve performance and simplify reporting.

For example, a requirement for the Canadian Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) vaccine strategy is to track whether or not animals have received a vaccination to know which protocols are required to respond to an outbreak.

“But first, you need to be able to identify them, and there isn’t a system in place where you can scan an animal’s ID and know if they’ve been vaccinated,” said Patterson, until now.

AgroLedger is an information-sharing platform capable of tracking and providing those pertinent details regardless of the animal being sold or entering the food chain.

“We realized traceability was more than understanding when the tag was put in the ear (and) where the tag moved when it was in an animal’s ear,” she said. “It’s more about understanding an animal’s history and moving that information with the animal through its life cycle.”

Patterson said AgroLedger is the foundation for a larger, cost-effective digital ecosystem providing sheep producers with operation management details at their fingertips, rapid disease response support, simplified reporting, and the ability to evolve to incorporate new or potential regulations.

Patterson said the European Union (EU) initiated a new policy regarding importing anti-microbial-treated animals and meat.

“We have no way of knowing which and what treatments an animal has had through its lifespan,” she said. “Or the meat that comes from that animal has had through its lifespan to be able to meet trading partners’ expectations.”

During the CSF’s involvement in national animal health discussions, it became apparent that AgroLedger would need to incorporate diverse layers of information on the animals’ history to comply with assurance and disease risk mitigation programming and import and export policy.

The program is getting closer to its release date as it moves down the production line, and a group of early adopters have been collaborating with the development team since the third week of June during its real-world testing.

“We are going to start onboarding those who volunteered to be an early adopter in the system. We’ve met with all levels of the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) to discuss its functionality,” said Patterson.

“So, we are pretty confident in where we sit in terms of technology, but it needs the final stamp of approval.”