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Traceability Solutions Gaining Momentum

OnTrace Agri-food and Intelliware team up to deliver practical traceability solutions for industry.

OnTrace Agri-food Traceability is the industry-led not-for-profit corporation created to lead food traceability programs and initiatives in the province of Ontario. OnTrace’s goals are:

  • to deliver traceability solutions that will enable the agriculture and agri-food industry in Ontario to become more innovative and competitive and;
  • to strengthen the capacity of industry and government to respond to emergencies related to agriculture and agri-food welfare and public safety.

OnTrace’s first step in the creation of industry solutions was to create the Ontario Agri-food Premises Registry for agri-food properties in Ontario known as the OAPR.

Intelliware has been OnTrace’s technology partner since their inception in early 2007. Intelliware created the OAPR under OnTrace’s direction to put the first building block of traceability in place in Ontario. Recent enhancements to the OAPR delivered by Intelliware include the ability to securely access the OAPR using a mobile Smartphone and an integrated membership management function.

Now that agri-food premises have a unique identifier, traceability solutions can use it to link together relationships in their supply chains. An example of this is the Traceability Pilot underway between the Ontario Independent Meat Producers (OIMP) and OnTrace. Intelliware has been engaged under the direction of OnTrace to build this Pilot solution with live data from producers, processors, transport and retailers in the meat supply chain in Ontario. This Pilot will demonstrate the many benefits of traceability and create a foundation for industry to build upon and extend to other commodity groups.

Further supporting the notion that traceability is gaining momentum, the Animal Health Act was passed in December of 2009. This Act is focused on facilitating greater protection against livestock and poultry diseases. A key parameter of the Act supports the creation of a future traceability framework for the quick identification and control of disease and food safety hazards. For more information see the press release for the Act.

And finally, to facilitate a traceability dialogue with interested parties, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) is hosting a one day Forum on Agri-food Traceability on January 28 in Guelph. This forum is designed to engage all stakeholders of traceability through presentations, panel discussions and open forums for input on the topic. More details can be found at www.ontraceagrifood.com.