As South Africa’s red meat sector scrambles for stability in the face of export bans and biosecurity demands, a pilot project in Bethulie wants to help smallholder livestock farmers meet new hi-tech traceability standards. Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks slammed the brakes on South African beef exports this year – a brutal blow for a red meat industry that relies on shipping big volumes abroad. To regain market trust and prevent losses, the industry is transitioning to a strict, unified national traceability system.
The recent launch of Phase 2 of the Red Meat Industry Services (RMIS) Traceability Platform, which now allows for application programming interface (API) integration with digital livestock management systems, marks a step towards a “single traceability framework from farm to fork”. Investing in radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, databases and management systems involves costs that large commercial farms can typically manage. For smallholder or communal farmers, however, the expense and technical knowledge needed are prohibitive barriers.
“For you to register [on the RMIS platform] there is a certain purchase price of ability and of technical skills. If you do not have it, then you lose access to the market,” Daniël Rautenbach, co-founder of Pointr Solutions, a business that connects hardware and software for analytics in farming and processing, told Daily Maverick. Now, Rautenbach is spearheading a project in a small Free State town aiming to reverse that loss of market access.
Read Full Article on Daily Maverick
[paywall]
Agricultural technology (agri-tech) promises productivity boosts, yet its rapid advances leave rural and smallholder farmers struggling to keep up. “I don’t believe that farmers are being left behind or unwilling to adapt to a modernised business model,” AgriSA’s national rural safety officer, Jason Kümm, said. “However the challenge is significantly more difficult in an environment where infrastructure is limited. “The greatest challenge in most rural communities remains the lack of reliable connectivity.”
[/paywall]
