Traceability from “farm to fork” using RFID technology

Rapid increasing breeds of livestock and growing automation of the livestock industry has brought a pressing need for more reliable identification of livestock. Electronic animal identification is now fast becoming more and more important in the new economic global environment to control livestock on the outbreak and eradication of diseases, limiting economic losses and control of residues in slaughtered animals. Animal diseases, outbreak of “Mad Cow scare”, “Nipah virus”, “Birds flu”, etc. have greatly intensified the evaluation of the various electronic RFID systems for an effective lifetime identification of livestock for food safety, health, breeding and diseases control and management. Legislation and regulations all over the world require only minimal information to be kept for traceability and each nation has its own traceability system which is incompatible with the others. In this paper we focus on the design and implementation of a pilot RFID-based traceability system which is compliant with EU regulations and can be used both for the wholesale and the retail sector.