TRACEABILITY IN THE LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY

Chang K.W.

Livestock traceability became a serious concern after the spread of mad cow disease in Europe. Records for traceability were deemed necessary to assist in keeping track of the source and destination of food of livestock origin so that product recalls and disease control could be rapidly managed. Traceability involves the application of searchable databases coupled with the tagging of livestock with unique identification codes. Present day tagging may be in the form of visible ear tags or Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. After slaughter, livestock products may be tagged with RFID or bar-codes to maintain the traceability to source.