Blockchain: The Next Frontier in the Beef Industry by Chessie Mitchell, Value-Added Coordinator As the world of data transfer between beef industry sectors is becoming increasingly important, a new opportunity is emerging in animal agriculture – blockchain technology. Blockchain technology in its simplest form, at the risk of oversimplification, is an informational super highway to share data between different beef industry sectors on a ledger-type format. The technology creates an electronic “chain” of “blocks” of validated and verified data between parties that users can access for traceability and transparency within each sector of the beef industry. All powered by the use of RFID technology, blockchain is taking the world by storm in many industries across the globe. As the beef industry has a fragmented supply chain, current methods of communication between sectors make data transfer extremely difficult but desirable. One of the most prominent examples is a cow-calf producer’s low success rate in obtaining carcass data on their calves. Wouldn’t it be nice to receive that? Wouldn’t it be neat to see where your calves end up after you sell them at a sale barn? Or, as a feeder, obtain all the third-party program documents on the calves you purchased from a sale barn? Or the health information on a traded group of calves? The answer to our problems is the next big player in the game of technology in the beef industry. How It Operates RFIDs are tagged in a group of cattle at the ranch of origin, scanned, and information about the group (such as health, third-party programs, sire and dam information) is uploaded to an Application Program Interface system. From there, the cattle could be scanned at the sale barn and data such as weight could be uploaded to the API.
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RED ANGUS Magazine November 2021
Once at the feedlot, the manager can use the information to improve processes or make better purchasing decisions. At the packer level, carcass data could be uploaded to match the RFIDs. Retailers could then track the protein from plate to pasture, if desired. Customers in each segment would have the opportunity to upload as much or as little information to the ledger-based system as they wish. Benefits to Beef Sectors The first question out of many people’s mouths is how this benefits different beef industry segments. For producers, blockchain can provide valuable data to make selection decisions and hopefully create ultimate transparency on how their cattle are performing further down the chain. For breed associations or third-party programs, this is an added-value service for customers and allows better data collection. For feedlots, blockchain can benefit existing and new relationships with cow-calf producers. Retail is always looking for ways to tell a positive story about the product they are placing in the market. Traceability is crucial in the industry, not only for safety reasons, but also the industry’s reputation. Blockchain use could create the ledger to trace an animal by individual ID back to the ranch of origin by a quick and straightforward search on the API. This means the industry can respond quickly and with reliable information obtained through the “blocks” of data on the “chain.” In all, the industry could maintain or improve its high reputation as a leader in traceability. Producers also ask essential questions about the safety of their data on the chain. First, the data is all shared over secure encrypted electronic environments. One of the biggest attributes of blockchain is that the data belongs solely to
