September 15, 2011, Calgary, Alberta – The livestock industry may have a new tool to help with the accuracy, environmental and financial challenges of tracking cattle.

Students in SAIT Polytechnic’s School of Manufacturing and Automation developed ultra high frequency radio frequency identification (UHF RFID) tags for the Radio Frequency Identification Lab as an applied research project. Field trials of these tags will soon get underway thanks to a $950,000 grant from the Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency (ALMA).

“The students and instructors at SAIT have made a significant contribution to addressing some of the challenges that producers face in tracing livestock in Alberta,” said Jack Hayden, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. “This generation is taking an innovative and fresh approach to further advance Alberta’s livestock industry.”

UHF technology will potentially decrease the error read rate and improve read accuracy at a speed that better meets the demands of commerce. Field tests will provide the livestock industry with results to compare against the current RFID technology. UHF systems could potentially be more cost-effective than the existing system primarily due to the significantly lower hardware costs.

“Our RFID applied research team has unique expertise in the advanced technology required to assist in solving some of the tracking challenges faced by the livestock industry,” said Irene Lewis, SAIT’s President and CEO. “Thanks to the grant from ALMA, we’ll be able to develop and test solutions to meet the traceability demands of the industry.”

“One of the  agency’s goals is to enhance the competitiveness of Alberta’s meat and livestock industry,” said Gordon Cove, President and CEO of ALMA. “The SAIT grant will move us towards that goal as the new UHF RFID tags help Alberta producers meet the traceability demands of our meat and livestock markets.”

The project is a collaborative research project involving SAIT, cattle industry representatives, Livestock Identification Services (LIS), Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD), and ALMA.

SAIT Polytechnic is one of Canada’s most exciting destinations for post-secondary education, offering more than 100 career programs that position people for success in technology, trades and business. A leader in innovation, SAIT also collaborates with industry on applied research and delivers corporate training worldwide. SAIT is a member of Polytechnics Canada and one of Alberta’s Top 50 Employers for 2011.

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