Does RFID ensure you eat safer food?

Any outbreak of animal borne disease and the first reaction is to stay away from the affected product be it meat or eggs until it get a clean chit once again. Given the deadly nature of these diseases, its not surprising that none of us want to take a chance and rightfully so.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has plans to use RFID amongst other methods to track all livestock with the hopes of quickly identifying and localizing affected animals in the event of future epidemics. This would result in quicker identification and quarantining and in containing the wide spread trouble.

Using passive RFID tags (i.e. tags without a battery within) that are attached to a particular lot of hens or cattle, the RFID readers will quickly be able to scan from a distance all details pertaining to that particular shipment. Perhaps the biggest advantage of using RFID in this case instead of the conventional bar code system is that in the event of requiring a re-check to confirm which shipment has been loaded on the truck, there isn't a need to unload the truck to scan each bar code.

Using today networking possibilities, such shipments can also be quickly tracked down even after it has crossed international borders into a foreign country. Quarantining such affected shipment coming in from many sources from across the world can be a Herculean task if each shipment had to be opened and checked. However with use of a suitable RFID scanner in the shape of a wand or a stationary object (say, the gate on a cattle pen), scanning and isolating the shipment can be achieved very quickly.

Its not surprising then that big retailing Giants like Walmart and Target have been quick to see the benefits and insist that their suppliers ship with RFID tags. For now it may seem like only the big players utilizing the RFID way of tracking. However, with a few more Bird Flu’s and not to mention demands of government-mandated animal tracking by 2009, more will follow quickly.