BIG steps forward are being taken by trailblazing Queensland agribusiness Ceres Tags, inventors of the solar-powered devices that enable livestock owners to capture real time information on their stock without being on-the-spot.
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The company, which came up with the world's first animal monitoring platform with direct-to-satellite capability through a smart ear tag, has just signed its first international distribution agreement, with the Swiss Government owned animal agricultural organisation Identitas Ag.
Ceres will also this month launch a free addition to its product called the Pasture Feed Intake, which will collect data on feed efficiency and methane emissions per day per animal.
The feature was designed to provide producers with information for making better breeding decisions such as the phenotype for genetic selection based on those two traits, but also to deliver the objective evidence for much-touted environmental, social and governance, or ESG, reporting.
Alongside that, Ceres will also be releasing a version of the tag for equine and guardian animal use.
The first three dimensional prototype of a guardian animal tag is now with Ceres and it is expected that within three months, beef operations will be able to extend the use of the technology to horses and dogs for much improved safety outcomes and to prevent theft.
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Swiss deal
The agreement with Identitas, the Swiss livestock industry's equivalent to the Integrity Systems Company within Meat & Livestock Australia, will see the use of Ceres Tags gear rolled out across the big dairy nation.
Ceres chief executive David Smith said automation of livestock production while meeting animal welfare and sustainability goals was core to Identitas' goals.
The relationship began in 2021, when Indentitas worked in parallel with Australia's science agency, the CSIRO, to advance Ceres Tag's traceability platform.
While Ceres has been selling direct to overseas customers for some time, and in fact has clients in 30 different countries across numerous species of animal, this is the first offshore distribution deal.
The path to widespread commercialisation was a long road for agtech, Mr Smith said.
"We have spent two years selling direct-to-market to demonstrate the high demand for the product and we now wish to make it more available to producers all over the world from their local suppliers," he said.
Ceres is in discussion with other international distributors too.
The agreement with Identitas will see a platform established in German and French.
"Effectively, Swiss farmers will no longer need to worry about recording information or getting their data correct as it will be all automated with the plug and play Ceres Tag platform," Mr Smith said.
Indentitas chief executive officer Christian Beglinger said the Ceres technology provided the beginning of digital transformation and automation suitable for the challenging Swiss environment to improve animal welfare and biosecurity while continually advancing the sustainability and productivity of operations.
In Australia, 4Tags is a Ceres Tag distributor and more local distributors are now being sought.
Pasture Feed Intake
The release of the Pasture Feed Intake add-on was largely about providing the livestock industry with the sustainability evidence it requires to reduce greenwashing by corporates, Mr Smith said.
It will measure individual animal kilograms of dry matter intake per day, feed efficiency, methane emission quantities per day per animal and phenotype for genetic breed selection.
"Every corporate - from Coles and Woolies to the big banks - will be needing this information for ESG and Scope 3 Sustainability reporting requirements," he said.
"Some nations are moving faster on this than others but it is a global trend."
