Traceability Talk Hits Fervor

The traceability movement in food, commonly referred to as the Farm-To-Plate initiative, is all the rage among both foodies and traditional consumers these days. Folks want to know exactly where that corncob on their plate came from and what inputs were used in its production. Naturally, regulatory organizations are being looked at as next to get in on the act, and it won’t be much longer until the seed industry faces the daunting task of linking every single individual seed to what seed treatment products were used in the treatment process.

Retailers should probably keep this fact in mind going forward, as increased regulation typically translates into an increase in cost-of-business. That’s where these advanced seed treatment application systems come in.

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“We are currently developing a feature that, when seed treatment products are used and connected with the system, takes a whole bunch of information from the various products and links it directly with the seed that’s going to be planted,” says Jeff Ochampaugh of Agrilead Inc. “Today in seed treatment it’s rare that a retailer can identify ‘Ok, this seed was treated with CruiserMaxx and this was the lot number of that CruiserMaxx.’ We see NOVO as being the opportunity to take that next step forward in traceability.”

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On Demand also plans to offer users advanced traceability capabilities in the near future. “With On Demand, when a product comes in its barcoded, and then that barcode is attached to where it goes in the system,” says Brad May, strategic business lead for Bayer CropScience’s SeedGrowth Group. “In the future, we’re going to be looking at things like first-in, first-out with the barcoding.”

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