Overview: One of the challenges faced in beef production in Brazil is combining production intensification with sustainability. Several aspects that used to be less valued earlier, such as quality, safety, food hygiene and product reliability, have become indispensable. In this context, the demand for traceability of the information regarding food is an important condition when the aim is conquering the customer's loyalty and trust. Bovine cattle production sustainability lacks the incorporation of technologies and tools which are innovative, easy to understand, economically viable and spatially explicit for registering data on primary production practices, including data on animal condition and mobility, as well as product origin and quality. The basic premises for a traceability process are: animal identification; data processing, management and storage; and data auditing at the field. Animal identification is an unavoidable prerequisite for herd tracing, whether it is made in lots or individually. Thus, the electronic identification of the animals becomes a very important tool, since it connects the following links of the meat production chain: production, industrialization and commercialization. The application of technology information tools (IT) and geographic information systems (GIS) enables storing data about agricultural activities, such as animals crossings, artificial insemination, nutritional and health aspects of each animal, weight, quality of the pastures, mobility of the animals, among other data, in a database and crossing them with information related to geographic aspects, such as: land use and occupation, topography, climatology, soil type, hydric resources, etc. This research developed from the needs and demands for food safety and food quality in extensive beef cattle production within the scope of the policies of countries of the Southern Cone and the European Union. Initially a traceability prototype was developed within the OTAG Project (Operational Management and Geodecisional Prototype to Track and Trace Agricultural Production). A second effort aims at enhancing the electronic devices used for the identification and positioning of the animals, and at incorporating a greater amount of information on management and health. Besides, a data warehouse will be structured to incorporate environmental and spatially explicit information, and to implement intelligent knowledge extraction algorithms, thus creating a geodecisional system for the sustainable production of beef which is easy to understand and financially accessible to all interested groups.
Objectives: To propose an enhanced geodecisional system for the operational management of extensive bovine cattle production, along with the patterns for acquisition, treatment and broadcasting of information aiming at the global challenges in traceability and emerging risks management in beef cattle production.
Expected results: New services for the traceability of the animals for production management and for new systems and tools for the user.
TEAM
Leader: Ricardo Guimarães Andrade – Researcher – Embrapa Satellite Monitoring.
Institutions involved: Embrapa Monitoramento por Satélite, Embrapa Milho e Sorgo, Embrapa Gado de Corte, Embrapa Informática Agropecuária, Embrapa Gado de Leite, Cemagref, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Universidade Federal de Viçosa.
|
