Source: OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY submitted to
ADVANCEMENT OF A WHOLE-CHAIN, STAKEHOLDER DRIVEN TRACEABILITY SYSTEM FOR AGRICULTURAL COMMODITIES: BEEF CATTLE PILOT DEMONSTRATION
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
TERMINATED
Funding Source
OTHER GRANTS
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
0226992
Grant No.
2011-51110-31044
Project No.
OKL02823
Proposal No.
2011-04848
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Program Code
111
Project Start Date
Sep 1, 2011
Project End Date
Aug 31, 2015
Grant Year
2011
Project Director
Buser, M.
Recipient Organization
OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
STILLWATER,OK 74078
Performing Department
Biosystems & Ag Engineering
Non Technical Summary
Traceability is a key component in developing a safe food supply, as evidenced by the recent outbreak of foodborne illnesses attributed to spinach, peppers, and tomatoes in the United States and the ongoing e-coli outbreak in Europe with 27 deaths reported to date. The European Union has agreed to pay over $300 million to farmers who suffered losses. The Centers for Disease Control reported that salmonella infection rates are increasing with one million people sickened by food-borne pathogens each year. Unfortunately, the current approach to product traceability is one-up, one-back information sharing at the GTIN (global trade item number) lot level. This type of traceability system has many disadvantages, including lack of privacy, and fails to maximize system benefits such as efficiency and more complete or ?whole-chain? information sharing. This approach is fraught with inherent delays, limiting consumers? and regulators? ability to identify the contaminant source and limiting mitigation efforts in the event of outbreaks or bioterrorism. This lack of critical information can cause significant economic losses to multiple industries resulting from public uncertainty on the potential for human hazard, affecting even those not connected with outbreaks. Conversely, research suggests that whole-chain traceability can substantially limit the economic loss of food safety events.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
40%
Developmental
60%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
4027410202040%
4027410208040%
4027410209020%
Knowledge Area
402 - Engineering Systems and Equipment;

Subject Of Investigation
7410 - General technology;

Field Of Science
2020 - Engineering; 2080 - Mathematics and computer sciences; 2090 - Statistics, econometrics, and biometrics;
Goals / Objectives
Objectives: (1)Develop a working, scalable stakeholder-driven "whole chain" agricultural commodity traceability system. (2) Develop consumer information links to the traceability system using mobile and social media. (3) Deploy the traceability system as a pilot beef cattle demonstration. (4) Evaluate the benefits and costs of using the system. (5) Transfer lessons learned about benefits and costs of using the system to producers, industry professionals, retailers, and other stakeholders, with the goal of extending the technology to other commodities and products. Outputs: Stakeholder engagement. This approach insures current and cutting edge industry, governmental, and consumer information needs are incorporated into the system. This approach seeks to develop and grow stakeholder "buy-in" to avoid the negative response commonly found in systems that are forced on industry without industry input. Deploy the data repository traceability and marketing system in a demonstration project. Cutting edge technology will allow immediate access to location data so that government and health resource units can mitigate outbreaks or attacks on food supplies without economically and socially devastating the industry and interrupting the food supply chain throughout the US unnecessarily. Producer selected real-time marketing data will be accessible by connected consumers. Demonstrate the integration of end software and equipment add-ins to help producers, processors, and consumers. Show stakeholders the full potential of stakeholder-driven, "whole-chain" data repository traceability and marketing system. Initiate, deploy and manage a working web-model of a "whole chain" product traceability system that is provided under open source licensing backed by secured intellectual properties for low cost and rapid adoption by the domestic (and potentially international) agricultural and food supply chains.
Project Methods
The software development for a working, scalable stakeholder-driven "whole chain" agricultural commodity traceability system is broken down into four categories: 1) system architecture, 2) system software, 3) content-centric networking and 4) stakeholder feedback. System Architecture: We propose to implement the distributed system using a content-centric networking (CCN) data framework such as the CCNx framework currently under development by Xerox PARC, System Software: The proposed WCTS system will extend the existing supply chain software of Pardalis, Inc. As multiple stakeholders may be generating and accessing shared data, we will develop algorithms for data synchronization, reconciliation and certification. The system must provide reports such as supply chain traceability reports. A browser-based version of the user interface will be designed and implemented. A critical subset of these will be implemented as applications in mobile Android based smart phones. Content-Centric Networking for Food Traceability: Initially, CCNx will be applied for commodity traceability to determine system performance characteristics such as bandwidth, caching requirements, delays, throughput, etc. CCNx's performance will be compared to the Internet Protocol. The security of CCNx for commodity traceability will be analyzed. In the second phase we will seek to alleviate the bottlenecks and weaknesses identified in the first phase, particularly the security vulnerabilities and trust implementation in the whole chain. We will first identify the security goals for a whole chain commodity traceability system to define security policies. These policies, which will include access rights, for example, will be enforced by credentials. Second, we will analyze the different levels of protection and privacy required by the different types of content. Third, we will implement trust in the whole supply chain within the CCNx framework by integrating credentials (Blaze et. al. 1996) with reputation-based trust management (Zacharia 2000) and policy-based trust management. We propose to create and discover by content the distributed credentials, reputations, users and data and thereby create a trust chain that is content-centric. Sanitation algorithms (Dilys 2007)) to filter content will be explored with a view to incorporating them within CCNx to ensure privacy.

Progress 09/01/11 to 08/31/15

Outputs
Target Audience:Scientists, cattle producers, nutrition managers, beef processors, regulatory agencies, policy makers, and the general public Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The team has presented their work at international, national, and state conferences or meetings including: American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, National Science Foundation Food Safety Workshop, National Value-Added Agriculture Conference, Arkansas Association for Food Protection Conference, USDA National Integrated Food Safety Initiative project directors meetings, Southern Animal Health Association, National Association of State Meat and Food Inspection Directors, Mid-Continental Association of Food and Drug Officials, and International Production & Processing Expo. The team has also worked with the International Food Technologists' Global Food Traceability Center. One of the team members participated in the development of IFT's Global Food Traceability's report entitle "Best Practices in Food Traceability: A Guidance Document". The team is currently putting the finishing touches on a series of YouTube videos that discusses the use of the current pilot demonstration system, system benefits, and estimated economic befits of the system. Some of the video segments focus on traceability in general. The team is also reviewing one to two page outreach documents that will accompany the videos. The target release date for the videos and outreach documents is December 2015. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The long-term goal of this project is to develop and implement an internet-based stakeholder-driven traceability and marketing system for food products that is not punitive or profit-limiting but adds value to the process while providing a method to limit and/or remedy food safety outbreaks and biosecurity breaches. A pilot demonstration software system has been developed and is being beta tested. This system includes data input by producers, vendors, and consumers. This data not only provides information to facilitate mitigation but also marketing information, value-added details, cultural and sociological features about the production or handling of the produce, quality standards criteria, and a feedback opportunity for consumers to rate or improve product quality. Data is controlled within the context of a multi-tenant social media system. In the system, stakeholders, particularly producers, maintain granular privacy control over access to data. This is critical, since the ability to trace food through a supply chain depends on private firms sharing product information with competitors as well as collaborators. If users are not assured information privacy control, they might refuse to participate in the system. The system uses GS1 GTIN identification. This system interfaces with other traceability and marketing systems through a data mapping interface. The system incorporates both traceability functions for food safety and biosecurity and data marketing functions. In the future, the data marketing functions would provide producers and processors an opportunity to develop new revenue streams by deploying new and innovative marketing strategies that make use of cell phone technologies and GIS graphic mapping web applications. This system could reduce the mitigation time related to food safety emergencies. Producers can feel confident in their data security within the system because they control who has the ability to access the data they input. One of the benefits of a stakeholder system (producers, processors, consumers, and regulators) is bringing people on both ends of the spectrum closer together by sharing data, enhancing the "farm-to-fork" relationship. The outreach team is currently finalizing a series of YouTube videos and information brochures that will be distributed to stakeholders.

Publications

  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Adam, B., Buser, M., Mayfield, B., Thomas, J., OBryan, C.A., and Crandall, P. 2015. Computer systems for whole-chain traceability in beef production systems. In Ricke, S.C., Donaldson, J.R., and Phillips, C.A. eds. Invited book chapter for Food Safety: Emerging Issues, Technologies and Systems, Academic Press. Pp. 9-16.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2015 Citation: Invited Presentation: Adam, Brian D., Michael D. Buser, Blayne Mayfield, Johnson Thomas, Rodney Holcomb, Tim Bowser, Ashwin Kumar, Krishna Palepu, Phil Crandall, and Steve Ricke. 2015. Whole-Chain Traceability  Information Sharing from Farm to Plate and Back Again: An Application to the Beef Sector. Presented at China Agricultural University, College of Economics and Management, June 8.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2015 Citation: Adam, B.D., Holcomb, R., Buser, M., Mayfield, B., Thomas, J., Crandall, P., O'Bryan, C.A., Ricke, S., Knipe, D., Knipe, R. 2015. Enhancing food safety, product quality, and value-added in food suply chains using whole-chain traceability. IFAMR Special Issue: The Value of Big Data in Agriculture: Inputs, Farming and Processing.


Progress 09/01/13 to 08/31/14

Outputs
Target Audience: Scientists, cattle producers, nutrition managers, beef processors, regulatory agencies, policy makers and the general public. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The team will continue to meet with stakeholder groups one-on-one or in group settings to demonstrate the pilot software system. Further the group will develop a series of youtube videos to discuss the use of the current pilot demonstration system, system benefits, and estimated economic befits of the system. The team is hoping to release the videos in July 2015. The team is planning on releasing a series of extension fact sheets to accompany the videos. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? The team has presented their work at national and state conferences or meetings including: American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, National Science Foundation Food Safety Workshop, National Value-Added Agriculture Conference, Arkansas Association for Food Protection Conference, USDA National Integrated Food Safety Initiative project directors meetings, Southern Animal Health Association, National Association of State Meat and Food Inspection Directors, Mid-Continental Association of Food and Drug Officials, and International Production & Processing Expo. The team is also working with the International Food Technologists' Global Food Traceability Center. One of the team members participated in the development of IFT's Global Food Traceability's report entitle "Best Practices in Food Traceability: A Guidance Document". One of the project's team members has provided information developed from the USDA NIFSI project to the Global Food Traceability and continues to work this groups efforts focused on seafood traceability. The team is currently working on a series of youtube videos to discuss the use of the current pilot demonstration system, system benefits, and estimated economic befits of the system. The team is hoping to release the videos in July 2015. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? The team is currently working on a series of youtube videos to discuss the use of the current pilot demonstration system, system benefits, and estimated economic befits of the system. The team is hoping to release the videos in July 2015. The team is planning on releasing a series of extension fact sheets to accompany the videos. The team is working on completing the development of a whole-chain traceability book chapter and plan to develop at least two journal articles from the projects work. The team has developed surveys for producers, processors, equipment manufacturers, governmental food safety officers, and vendors to determine how these different groups perceive the product traceability concept. The team will continue to meet with stakeholders in 2015 to discuss the pilot whole-chain traceability system.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The long-term goal of this project is to develop and implement an internet-based stakeholder-driven traceability and marketing system for food products that is not punitive or profit- limiting but that adds value to the process while providing a method to limit and remedy food safety outbreaks and biosecurity breaches. A pilot demonstration software system has been developed and is currently being beta tested. This system includes data input by producers, vendors, and consumers. This data not only provides information to facilitate mitigation but also marketing information, value-added details, cultural and sociological features about the production or handling of the produce, quality standards criteria, and a feedback opportunity for consumers to rate or improve product quality. Data is controlled within the context of a multi-tenant social media system. In the system, stakeholders, particularly producers, maintain granular privacy control over access to data. This is critical, since the ability to trace food through a supply chain depends on private firms sharing product information with competitors as well as collaborators. If they are not assured of privacy control over information, they may refuse to participate in the system. The system uses GS1 GTIN identification. This system interfaces with other traceability and marketing systems through a interface data mapping system. The system incorporates both traceability functions for food safety and biosecurity and data marketing functions. In the future, the data marketing functions provide producers and processors an opportunity to develop new revenue streams by deploying new and innovative marketing strategies that make use of cell phone technologies and GIS graphic mapping web applications. This system can reduce the mitigation time related to food safety emergencies. Producerscan feel confident in their data security within the system because they control who has the ability to access their data access. Consumers will feel secure in the information they access because of the stakeholder- driven input built into the system. One of the benefits of a stakeholder system (producers, processors, consumers, and regulators) is bringing people on both ends of the spectrum closer together by sharing data, enhancing the "farm-to-fork" relationship.

Publications

  • Type: Book Chapters Status: Submitted Year Published: 2014 Citation: Adam, B., Buser, M.D., Mayfield, B., Thomas, J., O'Bryan, C.A., and Crandall, P. computer systems for whole-chain traceability in beef production systems, or food traceability: an application to the beef industry. In: Food Safety: Emerging Issues, Technologies and Systems.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2014 Citation: Adam, B.D. and Buser, M.D. Whole-chain traceability: from gate to plate and back again. Ag Econ News. Spring 2014.
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Invited Presentation - Advancement Of A Whole-Chain, Stakeholder Driven Traceability And Food Safety System, expert testimony to the National Science Foundation at the 2014 NSF Food Safety Workshop in Alexandria, VA, October 29-30, 2014.
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Invited presentation - Whole-chain traceability  information sharing from farm to fork and back again, expert testimony to the Southern Animal Health Association/National Association of State Meat and Food Inspection Directors  Eastern Region Meeting, June 3, 2014, Oklahoma City, OK.
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2014 Citation: Invited presentation - Whole-chain traceability in beef production  demonstrating the technology. Invited presentation to International Production & Processing Expo in Atlanta, GA on January 28, 2014.


Progress 09/01/12 to 08/31/13

Outputs
Target Audience: Scientists, cattle producers, nutrition managers, beef processors, regulatory agencies, policy makers, and the general public Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? We have demonstrated the first phase of the software development to groups with representatives from the beef industry (including producers) and government regulators. It is expected that this software demonstration will continue through 2014. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? We have just begun the process of sharing information with our stakeholders. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Continue developing our extension demonstration materials. Continue meeting with stakeholders and demonstrating the system and soliciting feedback.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Web-Server We successfully set up the web-server for NIFSI). This server hosts all the web-services and database. We have set up databases to store data from different software’s used by cattle producers (CattleMax, CowSense). iPad Application We have developed iPad application for the cattle producers that has the following capabilities User Account Management Send Cattle information to NIFSI Server Sharing of selected information with other producers View information shared by other producers User Account Management module allows the user to register with our traceability system, by creating a user id and password, update e-mail address, change password. Send Cattle Information to NIFSI Server module lets the producers to download their cattle information from CattleMax/CowSense using their credentials and to upload selected information from that to NIFSI server. (Since we don’t have access to CattleMax/CowSense database directly we do it indirectly) Sharing of Selected information with other producers’ – This module aids the producers in sharing a set of selected information about their cattle with other producers. View information shared by other producers’ module allows the producers to view the data that is shared with them by other producers. The mobile application communicates with the database residing on wholechain server via web-services. All these web-services reside on the wholechain server. Desktop Application We have developed a desktop web application. To allow scalability and interoperability we have applied common functionalities to both the mobile ipad application and the desktop application. User Account Management module. We developed the Producer part where each producer should be an authorized person to log in. This allows the produce to register with our traceability system. He also can change account settings as he requires. He can also retrieve the password and username if forgotten. Retrieve information from CattleMax and CowSense in the cloud. The data stored in CattleMax and CowSense in the cloud can be downloaded to the desktop as a CSV file. This file can be updated on the desktop. Send Cattle Information to NIFSI Server module. This lets the producers to upload selected information from the desktop to NIFSI server. Sharing of Selected information with other producers’ – This module aids the producers in sharing a set of selected information about their cattle with other producers. View information shared by other producers’ module allows the producers to view the data that is shared with them by other producers. Like the mobile application, the desktop application communicates with the database residing on the wholechain server via web-services. All these web-services reside on the wholechain server. Integrating data from Distributed Databases Data from different cattle management software are stored on different databases. These databases have their own way of representing the information (Schema). Before sending data to the next link the data is converted to the Global Producer Schema. During the conversion process, data from different databases are integrated and sent to the next level in a sanitized format. This data integration functionality also resides in the wholechain server.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Crandall, P.G., OBryan, C.A., Babu, D., Jarvis, N., Davis, M.L., Buser, M., Adam, B., Marcy, J. and Ricke, S.C. Whole-chain traceability, is it possible to trace your hamburger to a particular steer, a U.S. perspective. Meat Science. 2013, doi: 10.1016/j.meatsci.2013.04.022.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Adam, B.D. and Buser, M.D. Whole-chain traceability: from gate to plate and back again. Ag Econ News. Spring 2014.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Buser, M.D., Adam, B.D, Bowser, T.J., Mayfield, B.E., Thomas, J.P., Crandall, P.G., and Ricke, S.C. Concept of a stakeholder-driven whole-chain traceability system for beef cattle. 15th Annual National Value-Added Agriculture Conference. Rogers, AR. 2013.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Buser, M.D., Adam, B.D, Bowser, T.J., Mayfield, B.E., Thomas, J.P., Crandall, P.G., and Ricke, S.C. Concept of a stakeholder-driven whole-chain traceability system for beef cattle. ASABE Oklahoma Section Meeting. Stillwater, OK. 2013.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2012 Citation: Buser, M.D., Adam, B.D, Bowser, T.J., Mayfield, B.E., Thomas, J.P., Crandall, P.G., and Ricke, S.C. Concept of a stakeholder-driven whole-chain traceability system for beef cattle. Arkansas Association for Food Protection Annual Conference. Fayetteville, AR. 2012.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2012 Citation: Buser, M.D., Adam, B.D, Bowser, T.J., Mayfield, B.E., Thomas, J.P., Crandall, P.G., and Ricke, S.C. Whole-chain, stakeholder-driven traceability system for beef cattle: a pilot demonstration. USDA National Integrated Food Safety Initiative project directors meeting. Providence, RI. 2012.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Whole-chain traceability  information sharing from farm to fork and back again, expert testimony to the Mid-Continental Association of Food and Drug Officials, February 26, 2013, Springdale, AR.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Demonstration of a whole-chain traceability system that protects confidential information, invited Keynote presentation to the Arkansas Association for Food Protection on September 12, 2013, Fayetteville, AR.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2012 Citation: The National Whole-Chain Traceability Institute  a consortium of industry, universities and regulators, invited Keynote presentation to the Arkansas Association for Food Protection on September 11, 2012, Fayetteville, AR.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Other Year Published: 2013 Citation: Crandall, P. Update on cooperative beef research: traceability and E Coli. University of Arkansas at Monticello Beef and Forage Field Day. Held on October 8, 2013.


Progress 09/01/11 to 08/31/12

Outputs
OUTPUTS: The team has made significant progress on evaluating current systems and creating the base structure for a new system. The following are the following specifics: 1The CCNx (Content-Centric Networking), a product of XEROX PARC Labs was evaluated to determine if the technology was a viable basis for communications in the whole-chain traceability system. Our tests determined that this technology is still to immature to serve our purposes. 2The Pardalis system was evaluated and it was determined that extensive work was needed to bring the system up to current network and security standards. The team determined that more advancement could be made by developing a system from scratch than reworking the Pardalis system to bring it up to current standards and then move it forward. 3) A Linux server has been set up for the whole chain traceability system. MySQL database and APACHE web Server were installed on the server. Both are popular, reliable, and open source. Web-Services are the means of communication to our MySQL databases to either send/receive data. The Universal Resource Locator (URL) for the server is wholechaing.agen.okstate.edu. 4The team is currently evaluating several node based beef related traceability products that are on the market. The ultimate goal is that the OSU whole-chain traceability system will interface with these supply chain node traceability systems so that data can seamlessly be transferred from one system to another as the animal moves through the supply chain. 5We have explored implementing a distributed database where MySQL databases are distributed on multiple servers. This enhances data availability and reduces the central point of failure, thus making the system more robust. We have developed an immutability model that aims at making the data stored in the database immutable (unchangeable). In the supply chain when data flows from one level to another a third party authorizes the data. After the data becomes unchangeable, if the authorized data is found to be incorrect a new data record is added to a change log. This allows for all changes to authorized data to be tracked as it moves through the supply chain. 7We are developing and experimenting with tablet computer apps, desktop computer programs, and web-based client applications to access the data contained in the database system. 8We are developing face-to-face and online surveys that will be given to producers (at various point along the supply chain) and processors to gain a better understanding on stakeholder knowledge base; preconceived notions about traceability from a food safety, disease, and supply chain management standpoint ; and what types of information would stakeholders like to have quick access to. The research team has worked well together during that past year to achieve the research and extension goals established in the grant proposal. The team met (via conference call for partners outside the Stillwater area) twenty-one times during the past year. The entire team met in Fayetteville, AR for a traceability mini-conference that was held in conjuction with the Arkansas Association of Food Protection. 136 people attended the conference PARTICIPANTS: Dr. Michael Buser, OSU Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering faculty member is the OSU lead for the studies related to the USDA NIFSI project. Dr. Buser supervises two Agricultural Communications graduate students who are supported by the project and are working on gathering stakeholder input through personal and online surveys. Dr. Brian Adam, OSU Agricultural Economics faculty member is working on the economic components of the project. Dr. Adam supervises two Agricultural Economics graduate students who are working on literature searches and economic modeling. Dr. Tim Bowser, OSU Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering faculty member is working with processors and how our system will integrate with current processor practices. Drs. Mayfield and Thomas, OSU Computer Science faculty members are working on evaluating current traceability systems and creating a pilot scale SQL based traceability system that will integrate with selected existing systems. Drs. Mayfield and Thomas are supervising two computer science graduate students. Drs. Crandall and Ricke, University of Arkansas faculty members are working with retailers and producers and are working on the project from the food safety side. Drs. Crandall and Ricke are supervising two graduate students. John Bailey of Top 10 Produce has provided a marketed brand for the pilot scale system to work under which allows the acquisition of GS1 GTIN numbers for the project. Mr. Bailey has provided a direct line to producers and processors that are already using traceability systems John Blanton with the Noble Foundation works with a large number of cow-calf, stocker, and feedyard operations. Partner organizations that have provided the following assistance to the project: Texas Cattle Feeders Association Oklahoma Cattleman's Association MarketMaker (University of Illinois) Dr. Derrell Peel (Oklahoma State University) Earth2Urban, a Oklahoma consolidator of local food Bar S Foods Lopez Foods Advanced Foods American Association of Meat Producers ShelfLifeAdvice.com TARGET AUDIENCES: Beef producers (cow-calf, stocker, and feedyard levels), beef processors, and consumers. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Pardalis, Inc. is no longer associated with the project. The Pardalis system was evaluated and it was determined that considerable time, money, and other resources would be needed to bring the system up to date to meet current network and security standards at the university. Once the team decided not to go with the Pardalis system and build a new system from scratch, Pardalis exited the project when the university would not guarantee to create the new system under the Pardalis patents.

Impacts
The team has met with a several stakeholders during the past year including: Texas Cattle Feeders Association, Oklahoma Cattleman's Association, Bar S Foods, Lopez Foods, Advanced Foods, American Association of Meat Producers, Shelf Life, Oklahoma Farm Bureau, Earth2Urban, University of Arkansas Radio Frequency Identification Laboratory, and several individual producers. The research team coordinated a traceability mini-conference that was held in conjuction with the Arkansas Association of Food Protection. A total of 136 folks from across the US attended the meeting with folks from Walmart, Tyson, USDA, and FDA in attendance. The team toured the University of Arkansas Radio Frequency Identification Laboratory and discussed potential collaborations. The research team toured the Tyson processing research and development facility in Springdale, AR. The research and extension activities conducted during the past year were substantial and have positioned the team to have an operational pilot scale whole-chain traceability beta system for beef this coming year. Once the system is operational, the extension team will begin demonstration the system to stakeholders to gather feedback on the systems functionality and interface.

Publications

  • Crandall, P.G., OBryan, C.A., Babue, D., Jarvisa, N, Davisa, M.L., Buser, M., Adam, B, Marcy, J., and Ricke, S.C. 2012 Whole-chain traceability, is it possible to know which steer your hamburger came from. Submitted to Meat Science.