Gen-i is demonstrating the latest technology and traceability methods available to New Zealand farmers and growers at this year’s National Agricultural Fieldays event on 13-16 June at Mystery Creek. Together with 23 Fieldays participants, including five of New Zealand’s leading rural providers, Gen-i is playing a key role in creating New Zealand’s largest traceability showcase to raise awareness amongst the farming community of the benefits of traceability systems.
Traceability is the ability to track ingredients through the food chain, from farm to fork. According to David Walker, Rural Market Manager at Gen-i, the selection of traceability as the major theme for this year’s Fieldays highlights the increasing importance of this issue to New Zealand’s agricultural sector, and to the economy as a whole.
“There is increasing awareness amongst farmers and rural providers about the importance of traceability. Overseas consumers want to know that produce is of good quality, and that it was produced using good farming practice and humane processes,” says Walker. “The ability to trace food products back to origin adds another dimension to New Zealand’s excellent biosecurity standards, and an additional insurance for producers.”
Large international supermarket chains are using evidence of high standards of safety, ethics and environmental practices to sell products for premium prices. One example is British supermarket chain Tesco, which is working in partnership with the RSPCA to offer a Freedom Food label, the key to which is full traceability of the product from farm to fork.
“New Zealand farmers are keen to participate in market sectors like this and need to be able to comply with government regulations covering the sourcing of food. Key markets like the EU, the United States and Japan already have legislation requiring traceability of food supplies, and this trend is on the increase,” says Walker.
While traceability will eventually become mandatory in New Zealand, Walker says that many farmers now see traceability systems as a future investment, not as another cost.
“Traceability systems can improve the productivity and profitability of farming, processing, storage and distribution systems across the food supply chain.
“In the case of a product recall, sophisticated tracing systems can isolate problems, enabling them to be solved quickly and preventing other producers from suffering unnecessary cost and inconvenience.”
The technology behind traceability is well-proven, Walker says. Easily scaleable management systems of this nature are well-established in corporate sectors such as health, manufacturing and distribution.
“We have joined forces with key industry organisations and technology partners in the rural sector to create a capability that will help farmers reap the benefits of the technology quickly and at low risk.”
Gen-i provides an end-to-end service encompassing all the technologies required to securely collect, integrate and access information on animals, forage and produce in a dynamic, real-time system. This involves collaboration with other partners to provide traceability applications and databases, as well as the provision of the supporting computing and data communications infrastructure.
Gen-i’s national reach, with 14 offices in all regional centres, ensures a strong local presence and support structure for the rural sector. “Size, scale, capability and robustness are all important factors to ensure New Zealand farmers have access to a world-class system of traceability,” says Walker.
“It’s an area where No 8 wire solutions simply won’t work, but strong commercial partnerships will. More and more farmers will recognise this when they consider their own on-farm investment.”
“The application only uses the equivalent of one third of a full-time staff member’s time, and has proved to be a cost effective way of reaching out to thousands of clients with the information they want before they ask for it, while not putting a drain on staff time and resources,” said Harris.