Building a Smarter Planet. A Smarter Planet Blog.
Following is a guest post from Robert Fourdraine, PhD, COO Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium:
Recent USDA listening sessions on the establishment of the National Animal Identification System have once again increased the debate if the United States should proceed with establishing a mandatory or continue with a voluntary national livestock disease traceability system. Although opinions differ on how livestock disease issues can be best addressed, and concerns about cost, confidentiality, technology, and practicality of the system remain, the need for improving our existing infra-structure to respond quickly to a disease outbreak has not decreased.
While the national debate seems to focus on the “if we should implement a system”, individual states and industry have made progress and addressed several of the concerns. One of those areas is technology. Based on input from the livestock industry and producers, most species recommend the use of some type of individual identifier for animals moving into commerce. Depending on the species and type of farm management, the use of a group/lot identifier could also be used to keep track of animals leaving the farm. The cattle industry would get the most value out of using a visible ear tagging system that can also be read electronically. In recent years great progress has been made integrating low frequency RFID technology (LF RFID) in herd management making the use of LF RFID more attractive to livestock producers. In the dairy industry for example a USDA official approved LF RFID can also be used for herd health checks, sorting animals, collecting parlor data, animal health programs, breed registry, etc.
By integrating the official ID tags in herd management and industry programs, the process of participating in a disease traceability system becomes not only more practical but also more cost effective and can also open up opportunities for livestock producers to participate in other value added programs.
Bottom line, integration with existing programs will result in minimizing the up front investment and the ongoing effort it will take for a producer to participate in a animal disease traceability program.
Proud, optimistic, inspired.
I came away from last weeks Berlin SmarterCities forum feeling all these things. Apart from the great weather it was a great experience to see so many clients and IBMers exchanging ideas and being captivated by the vision of smarter cities. I’ve been lucky enough to have been to several events similar to this and haven’t felt such a buzz before.
@coastw Event about to start. Main tent is jam packed.
There is really no debate that we need smarter cities, we all complain about them, from traffic and healthcare, to water and public safety - we all think they could be improved. How we go about creating them is also emerging through collaboration and open standards. Continue reading »
On Wednesday, June 24 IBM hosted a forum in Washington, D.C. on Capitol Hill for our clients and influencer ecosystem to examine the need for smarter and safer food systems, and to discuss the future of food safety and quality and ways to improve consumer safety and confidence. More than 70 people attended including a US Congresswoman, US Federal Food Agencies, clients, academia, business partners, grocery and food associations, White House staffers, press and analysts. Organizations represented include the FDA, Center for Food Safety, United Fresh Produce Association, USDA, Wisconsin Livestock Identification Association, Univ of Maryland, George Mason Univ, Sara Lee, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association, and attendees were very complimentary of (and in some cases surprised) at the diversity of participants.
Here are a few highlights from each speaker - common themes include the need for identifiers for food products, open traceability systems, standards, and information sharing:
Congresswoman Nita Lowey, NY-18 (Westchester): we need a mandatory traceability system for all foods
David Acheson, Assoc. Commisioner for Food, FDA: major roadblocks to food safety are the lack of uniform standards, we need a global traceability system, there’s a misconception that local is safe and global is unsafe
Gay Whitney, Standards Director, EPCglobal: we need standards for food identification, information capture and information sharing
Caroline Smith DeWaal, Food Safety Director, Center for Science in the Public Interest: 46% consumers worry they’ll get sick from food, 52% have little confidence in food safety systems, retailers need to take more responsibility with recalls
Viktor Varan, Matiq: talked about the food tracking system implemented in Norway
Dr. Allan Preston, DVM and Assistant Deputy Minister, Manitoba Agriculture, Food & Rural Initiatives: humbled by how underdeveloped and developing nations are ahead of North America in food traceability
Dr. Harold Schmitz, Chief Science Officer, Mars: We need government, universities, and the industry to work together, and not fragment, to counter food supply chain threats
Margaret Saunders, Homeland Security Director, Oak Ridge National Lab: food safety is important to homeland security
The session ended with an active Q&A that could have gone longer, but we were already over our allotted time.
Below is a link to the press kit for the event that includes the final press release on the consumer survey we did about their attitudes on food safety that we released the day of the event. as well as other relevant content.
www.ibm.com/press/smarterfood
To build on the Smarter Cities event in Berlin, we wanted to share this video-on-demand section on the new IBM Global Business Services Video Studio, which includes a variety of clips and short videos related to Smarter Cities. The Studio was launched in conjunction with the new GBS consulting organization, Business Analytics & Optimization Services.
Of course, you are also welcome to follow Smarter Cities news and development via the Smarter Cities Widget, or via the Smarter Cities channel on Tumblr.
Alongside what government and business can achieve for a smarter city, I think we should add a topic for the next conference - citizen (or community) generated capability. (We should add economic development, too, but that’s for another post).
On BBC World News last night Andy Stanford-Clark’s twittering home was featured - devices in his house send tweets to alert him of conditions like, say, your garden hose is leaking and doing bad things to your water meter levels…
Now Andy is a very clever and tech-savvy person, and a pioneer in many ways. But the barriers to entry to doing things like this are massively lower then they were even two years ago. You can find increasing numbers of citizens, and communities of ordinary people, providing wonderful capabilities that support the “smarter city” idea.
Remember scipionus, set up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?
How about fixmystreet?
and many more.
This is a phenomenon we should explore more as smarter cities rolls on. And helping people to participate is an investment area for cities as they progress.