Cattle production within Brazil has a long and mired history with deforestation practices that directly affect Brazilian farmers and global CO2 levels. Much like other industries complicated by the history of deforestation and new rules regarding deforestation-free verified products, the cattle industry has faced challenges in achieving visibility across the whole supply chain. Current traceability of cattle within Brazil faces many obstacles (e.g., internet availability, “siloing” of stored data, laundering of cattle, and corruption) all exacerbated by the disparate traceability solutions used within separate supply chains. IDH, Rever Consulting, and Wholechain have come together to launch an open-source traceability framework for cattle to meet the needs of farmers, stakeholders, and buyers of cattle products.

Using GS1’s EPCIS standard as the backbone of the “Framework for the Interoperable Electronic Traceability of Cattle,” IDH, Rever, and Wholechain have provided a road map for standardized, interoperable data across the cattle supply chain. Having wide adoption across various industries such as pharmaceuticals and seafood, GS1’s EPCIS standard has been applied in an innovative approach in the Framework. This application of EPCIS allows for actors to share supply chain data across the full chain of custody, even if they are not registered with GS1. (Read the GS1 US case study here.)

Informed by the work of industry-specific initiatives such as Beef on Track, Sustainable Calf Production Protocol, Roundtable on Sustainable Beef, the Accountability Framework Initiative (AFI) which describe important sustainability practices, the Framework, similar to the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST), complements these efforts by establishing a data standard for defining and documenting traceability that can be shared across systems. Through the standardization approach, actors and stakeholders are relieved from the burden of aligning with a specific solution provider. By using a common framework, their efforts collectively lead to the rapid scaling of traceability initiatives. Competition is induced among traceability solutions to provide both a quality service and product at the best prices.

Informed by the work of industry-specific initiatives such as Beef on Track, Sustainable Calf Production Protocol, Roundtable on Sustainable Beef, the Accountability Framework Initiative (AFI) which describe important sustainability practices, the Framework, similar to the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST), complements these efforts by establishing a data standard for defining and documenting traceability that can be shared across systems.

From individual birth farms to meatpackers, the Framework is intended to allow stakeholders the freedom to choose their traceability solution while allowing further improvement of the standards by all interested parties to meet the various social, environmental, industry, regulatory and consumer demands of the cattle supply chain. Already utilizing government-regulated documentation for Farms and Transporters, the Framework can easily be built upon to meet specific industry needs such as the EU’s Deforestation-free Regulations. For example, cross-referencing of third-party databases for deforestation, human rights, child labor, etc. at the farm level is just one possibility for enhancing the Framework to provide additional data points for certification and regulatory compliance. With this launch, IDH, Rever, and Wholechain are thankful to collaborate in enabling traceability in a global supply chain that can have a direct impact on preserving an important ecosystem.

How to use the Framework:

• As a starting point from which to work in order to have a common definition of sustainability and essential data points to guarantee system interoperability.

• As a tool to educate key stakeholders on the meaning of event-based traceability by defining for the cattle value chain the critical tracking events (CTEs) and Key Data Elements (KDEs) to set common definitions for traceability within the industry and a detailed explanation of the GS1 EPCIS data standard, Identification & Tagging practices, and the KDE / CTE Matrix.

• Leverage the Framework’s Implementation Guide, subdivided into categories by stakeholder (i.e. Farms & Feed yards, Processors), to understand the data elements to collect at each tracking event in a cattle supply chain, as well as technical guidelines for ensuring interoperability.

• As a guide for the development of other industry frameworks, drawing from the technical guidelines on interoperable data standards. The Framework’s authors are available to answer questions on other industry applications.

Definitions:

Traceability: The type of traceability relevant to this case study is end-to-end traceability, which “refers to the ability to track and trace an object through its entire life cycle and through all parties involved in its production, custody, trade, transformation, use, maintenance, recycling or destruction” (GS1 US).

Socio-Environmental Verification: Refers to national and regional policies that serve as frameworks for the verification of sustainable practices by farmers, processors and other key stakeholders at each level of the supply chain. Socio-environmental verification cannot exist without the use of third party verification systems, as defined below.

Third Party Verification Systems: In contrast to the systemic framework that socio-environmental verification provides for sustainable practices, these terms refer to the verification of sustainable practices through the use of third party systems. Third party systems include satellite monitoring, geospatial analysis, traceability technology, IoT sensors and others that can be implemented to collect data at each point in a product life cycle (e.g. calf at the birth farm, meat at the processor, etc.), to verify compliance with specific supply chain goals and policies.

Further reading: GS1 US Case Study

This case study published by GS1 US provides more detail into how GS1 standards informed the data Framework for cattle traceability, the challenges it addresses, and other relevant applications.

Wholechain is a member of the GS1 US Solution Partner Program and participates in GS1 interoperability and traceability working groups to assist in creating guidance for industry, ensuring the latest data capture through frameworks such as the one published here.