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DECEMBER 3, 2015 | WWW.PRODUCER.COM | THE WESTERN PRODUCER
NEWS
DISEASE CONTAINMENT SERVICE
Phone, GPS system aims to boost livestock security System warns producers if another producer has confirmed a disease or noted unusual symptoms in a particular area BY REBECA KUROPATWA FREELANCE WRITER
Satellite-based biosecurity may be the next weapon in the fight against livestock diseases. “The last 12 years, they have been running these simulations for when a disease outbreak occurs,” said Tim Nelson, president of Be Seen Be Safe. “One of the issues in the disease simulations was the business of understanding or knowing who had been on our farms and being able to get in touch with them, so that we can warn them they had been on a farm that may have a disease. It’s all about forewarning.
“The whole system we’ve created is not about protecting the individual farm. It’s about regional protection. It’s about being able to, very quickly when there’s a sign of disease, notify all of the people that may have been connected with that disease.” Nelson said his company’s system does not help a producer who already has the disease, but it can stop people from going to farms after they have been on an infected farm. The system will also notify farms if they have had a visitor who has been in contact with a disease so that they can go on full alert. “This is good for any livestock sector, particularly where you have service personnel running from
farm to farm,” said Nelson. “We have feed trucks driving from farm to farm, egg pick-up trucks going farm to farm, milk collection vehicles going from farm to farm on a daily basis, salesman running around, all sorts of people who run around livestock on a regular basis.” Nelson’s company also asks producers to report symptoms as soon as they arise. The method is used in the human health sector, but it is new in livestock disease management. Producers use the company’s app to report symptoms. “What happens then is the farmer or the farm technician or whoever on the farm sees a symptom, hears or sees a few dead chickens, or water consumption in the dairy farm has dropped, anything unusual, and they report that with the drop-down box,” said Nelson.
“It’s instantly mapped, so these maps can be public and other producers with the same species of livestock can see what diseases or possible diseases there are moving around their property. It’s heat mapped, so you can put in your property, and you can look at five, 10, or 20 kilometres and monitor the movement of disease symptoms.” Farmers who report diarrhea or sneezing birds allow their neighbours to vaccinate their animals. “The system works by using your mobile phone or GPS devices, which is where the satellite comes in,” said Nelson. “GPS devices on all smartphones can be enabled with the Be Seen Be Safe all health monitor apps. After you download the app and register your profile with us, you are then on the system.
“As a service person, when you enter or exit a property that is on our system, you cross what is known as a geo-fence, which is a virtual boundary erected around the property, remotely, by my staff. So, we put up a virtual fence around all properties on the system. And then, when somebody with a Be Seen Be Safeenabled device crosses that boundary, it records who came onto the farm, when they came onto the farm, and when they left.” The company does not track people outside of geo-fenced farms. “They only monitor when you go in and when you leave,” he said. “That information is then used to create a clever map that shows the movement of people and vehicles around agriculture on a real-time basis.… Nobody knows who those people are except for us.”
SUSTAINABILITY
Group tackles sustainable crops The roundtable’s members are a cross section of the industry BY JEFFREY CARTER FOR THE WESTERN PRODUCER
DRESDEN, Ont. — Collaboration and compromise will be part of the Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Crops, says the senior manager of sustainability for McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada. Jeffrey Fitzpatrick-Stilwell said the group will focus on economic, environmental and social sustainability. As of late November, 36 food and agriculture businesses and organizations had paid $1,000 memberships to be part of the group. McDonald’s has already made forays in this direction with its Our Food, Your Questions and Not Without Canadian Farmers programs. Rather than driving the process, Fitzpatrick-Stilwell sees food service providers collaborating with other links in the food chain. “It isn’t an easy task, and in any format like this there has to be compromise, but from our experience, the Canadian agriculture value chain’s intentions are sound and responsible,” he said. “Consumers are increasingly inquisitive about where their food comes from and how it’s grown and
raised. On the retail end of the value chain, we require credible proof points to enable us to respond to those concerns and help enable connections between consumers and the people who grow and raise the food in our restaurants.” The roundtable has been around for two years but is only now gaining momentum with the appointment of Fran Burr as executive director. She accepted the position in August after retiring from her job as vice-president of marketing for Cargill in Canada. One of her first jobs will be to oversee the design of a logo and website. Burr said it’s hoped next year’s budget will add up to around $1 million. Members include the Canadian Grains Council, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the Flax Council of Canada, Pulse Canada, Crop Life Canada, the Canola Council of Canada, Weston Foods, Canada Bread, McCain Foods, McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada, Cargill, BASF, Syngenta and the Soil Conservation Council of Canada. The World Wildlife Fund has also been invoiced for a membership. Burr said the grains council has provided seed money for the group, while Agriculture Canada
has earmarked $1 million for projects over the next three years. “We’re going to have to do some fundraising, going back to the members, the federal government and perhaps the provinces,” she said. “What will make our message strong is that we are such a broad and diverse group. It’s the full value chain from producers to end users.” A key focus for the roundtable will be to develop standards for agricultural sustainability, which Burr said will be outcome-based rather than prescriptive. “There’s currently a lot of confusion out there,” she said. “What the CRSC is trying to do is understand the needs of consumers and look at the farmers’ end and help sort this out.” Fitzpatrick-Stilwell said Canada’s farm community is already sustainable, although there’s still room for improvement. “Economic sustainability is the most important of the three pillars because you can’t have the other two — environmental and social sustainability — if farmers can’t make money and if younger generations do not see a future,” he said.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Alberta water plants to receive repair funds BY MARY MACARTHUR CAMROSE BUREAU
Rural municipalities can now fix water and waste water treatment plants that are in desperate need of repair, said Alberta infrastructure minister Brian Mason. The Alberta government has set aside $545 million over five years to repair and update rural water treatment facilities. “We strongly believe access to high quality drinking water and safe and sanitary water and waste water treatment systems is vital to
growing strong and healthy communities,” Mason said when the government funding was announced at the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties convention. Rural municipalities are encouraged to reexamine projects previously shelved because of reduced infrastructure budgets, he said. Mason said he toured a waste water treatment facility in Nanton this summer and found that sections were being held together with boards and baling wire. Association president Al Kem-
mere said there is never enough money for infrastructure projects, but the announcement will give municipalities access to much needed funds to upgrade and build new treatment facilities. The funding will be delivered through the Water for Life program to assist water and waste water projects over the next five years. Communities larger than 45,000 people are not eligible for the grant. mary.macarthur@producer.com