by Michael Lawton
Radio Frequency Identification is in the news right now thanks to new uses in supermarkets and passports but the technology has been around since the early eighties. Swiss Sokymat is one of the major manufacturers of electronic animal tags worldwide.
“We can ID anything from a bee to a bison,” says Jean-Miguel Robadey, product manager for animal products at Sokymat in Granges, Switzerland. They make Radio Frequency Identification transponders especially for pets and livestock.
According to CTO Marc Bielmann, the market is really starting to take off. “We offer more security when things goes wrong in the world,” he says. “Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, (BSE), or mad cow disease, bird flu—our technology helps when there is increasing demand for safety and traceability.”
With the BSE, all of a sudden, there was a need to determine the exact identity and origin of a cow. Livestock had to be traced from birth to slaughterhouse and the market demanded total transparency. Conventional ear tags provide the same information, but you don’t have to get so close to an electronic tag and it can be linked to a database which can provide instant detail.
These passive transponders can be read at a distance of around one metre, which means that cattle can be registered automatically as they move through gates. The reader can transmit the data via radio to the farm database.
Transponders for livestock identification can be in the form of a flat coil, 30 mm in diameter, which Sokymat sells to ear tag manufacturers to be integrated into their products.
Another version is housed in a glass tube inside a ceramic bolus which is inserted into the gullet and fed to the animal. It settles in the second stomach, and stays there. “In the case of a cow, the tube is 4 x 34 mm and the bolus has to weigh at least 70 grams,” says Jean-Miguel, “otherwise the stomach rejects it.” The size varies depending on the animal, since the objective is to achieve as large a housing as possible without causing the animal discomfort.
The actual signal contains a unique identification code. There’s no encryption in the transmission between transponder and reader—the security is in the database, which contains all the information relating to the animal, accessible to authorised users only.
“It is a 15-digit-code defining country and ID No of the animal,” explains Marc. “Code distribution is controlled by governments in accordance with an ISO standard which also defines 134.2 kHz as the relevant frequency for animal tagging.” And Jean-Miguel adds, “Every code has to be readable by every reader in the world, otherwise the system is useless.”
“Some people are talking about adding information to the code,” Marc says, “but most people think the information should be in the database, since that is easier to update, more secure and less expensive.”
He believes comprehensive implementation of RFID for animals has been slow because it requires a lot of administrative input from governments and the prices are still high. Initial schemes are voluntary and—although subsidised by the government—farmers have to invest their own money. But Marc believes that, after a while, farmers will see the advantages of being able to market the traceability of their products.
Eventually, the unique identification of livestock using RFID may well become compulsory. That trend can already be seen: in September 2006, Canada will make RFID compulsory for cattle being moved between premises, and in 2008 it will become compulsory for all sheep and goats in the European Union.
The USA has not yet introduced a full traceability system but is working on the implementation of a nationwide scheme. BSE was a shock there too, with Japan and other trading partners banning beef imports from the US because there was no way to separate cattle at risk from healthy animals. This has led consumers, governments and exporters to demand traceability, and the government is working on a scheme which may well require RFID.
But traceability has other uses, too. In Spain, butchers can tell whether the ham they are selling really does come from the top-of-the-range Iberico variety of pig because these pigs have a tag injected into each hoof.
In another application for farm management, RFID transponders identify whether a particular pig or a calf has already had enough to eat today. If it has, then the automatic feeding system will give it no more. “A pig with extra fat loses value so it is important to control how much food it gets,” says Jean-Miguel.
About half of the turnover generated by the Sokymat animal business unit is in RFID for livestock; the rest is for pets and exotic animals. According to Marc, pets are also a fast-growing market, with Switzerland and New Zealand making electronic tagging for dogs compulsory this year. In addition, every pet crossing an EU border is required to have a passport and must be identifiable by tattoo or RFID tag. As the tattoo will be phased out, the demand for RFID will increase.
For pets as well as for livestock there are unique government-defined codes according to ISO standards. Each country has its own database, and, in Europe, there is the continent-wide EuroPetNet. The identification itself is simple, and only authorized users have readers which connect the code to a particular animal. So if someone finds a dog, only the police or similar organisations can identify its owner.
The Sokymat pet tags are enclosed in a standard 2 x 12 mm glass tube. The implantation into the body does not cause any discomfort to the animal, but because the transponder is smaller, the reading distance is down to just 12 cm. Because pets are usually handled individually, rather than in herds, no problem exists.
“This is a potentially very large market,” says Marc. “Electronic tagging is highly recommended by the authorities, and, in the US, for example, only 4 percent of the 164 million dogs and cats are tagged. So there is enormous scope for growth.”
But there are other animals which, in Sokymat-speak, count as pets, in that they also take the smaller tags. Horses are tagged to ensure the right horse is actually running the race. Carrier pigeons are tagged (using a tag in a plastic pack fitted to a ring) to ensure that rings aren’t swapped during a competition.
Some tags are used for research purposes. Sea turtles, for instance, return to Pacific islands once a year to lay their eggs. Every year, scientists are there to meet them, and although they can't greet them by name, they can greet them by individual RFID code.
Fish breeders also use RFID tags to track the best male and female breeding fish—a good salmon can be worth USD 1,000. In addition, fish can be tracked and weighed, so that they can be separated into different pools. Since this is an internal system, the tags are reusable.
Laboratory mice are also tagged with a 2 x 8 mm glass tube tag. Usually they are identified with tiny cuts made in their ears, but radio tagging is more secure. Jean-Miguel says: “Mice can be very valuable if they have specific genetic characteristics, and years of research can be lost if the mice get mixed up.”
Sokymat tags are even used for bees. At 18 mg, these are the smallest low frequency tags made. They are applied by stunning the bee in a freezer and gluing the tag to its back. This way queens can be tracked, but tags have also been used for bees to determine the location of land mines, which they discover due to their liking for TNT.
“Electronically, it is a straightforward and simple technology but it takes expertise to match the products and packaging with the requirements of the different animals,” says Jean-Miguel.