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Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
and Animal Traceback

Micro Beef Technologies introduced the beef industry’s first individual animal identification and health safety assurance tracking system in 1986 with the revolutionary DRUG-TRAC® Animal Health System. The DRUG-TRAC® System initially utilized electronic identification eartags with bar code technology.

Since then, electronic identification methods have advanced with button transponders and other systems becoming more widely available. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and other unique animal identifiers are useful in implementing individual animal data collection, management, and traceback programs. RFIDs combine automated animal identification with good retention characteristics.

With the ACCU-TRAC® Electronic Cattle Management System, Micro Beef has been utilizing RFID technology since the early 1990’s for individual animal data collection and traceback along with advanced management and marketing practices. The ACCU-TRAC® System combines individual animal data collected across industry segments from the ranch, through the feedyard, to the packer into software profiles for each animal accessible through ACCU-TRAC®’s extensive database. Micro Beef’s individual animal data reconciliation process ensures and verifies that the data collected actually belongs to the animal to which it is assigned and that it is matched correctly.

An individual’s information is available at the touch of a button for reporting and analysis by accessing the unique Universal Animal Identification Number (UAIN) assigned to each animal. The UAIN is a unique and permanent number assuring a permanent database record for each animal regardless of the number or type of identification methods associated with the animal throughout its life. This is particularly important when identification devices are either lost or are deemed “no reads”. With this approach, the animal can still be identified utilizing additional information that is linked with the animal’s permanent database identifier Traceability is enhanced with independence from any single identification device. This approach also allows producers the flexibility of choosing the identification method that best fits their circumstances while enabling enhanced traceback capability. Therefore, more cattle will be traceable in the event of mandatory governmental regulations. Hundreds of thousands of individual cattle have been automatically tracked via UAINs in the ACCU-TRAC® System since 1994.