Animal Identification and Traceability (AIT) of terrestrial farm animals, feral animals and wildlife is the target of a big ongoing global effort of (a) the competent veterinary and food safety authorities, (b) members of the value chain (producers, input suppliers, traders, slaughter enterprises, product processors, wholesale and retail traders), and (c) the support services such as local and regional livestock services and relevant information systems.

As a result of more than 15 years in the relevant area, ADT Projekt GmbH and Unternehmensberatung Dr. Karb GmbH established the “Animal Traceability Solutions” (ATS) – Platform. The development of the platform was supported by the German Ministry of Agriculture and Food within their innovation program managed by the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food.

The going-public of the platform took place in 2012 (www.animaltraceabilitysolutions.net).

The platform targets all organizations and institutions involved in the planning, implementation or operation of animal traceability systems. The objective is to provide technical assistance and to share experience between partners. The platform is developed and maintained by an international network of senior consultants who have been involved in traceability projects in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and Asia.

The ATS platform is the entry point to manage and improve the different fields of application in order that incremental costs for setting up and operation of AIT are more than offset by incremental benefits. Costs and benefits arise in various subsectors such as for animal health, food safety, production recording and production management, breeding, animal genetic resources, governance, stock theft, supporting pastoralists and animal welfare.

The objective of the platform was to provide assistance which leads to an efficient process for the planning, preparation and implementation of a system for animal identification and traceability including the relevant information system. Relevant parts of the knowledgebase customized and adapted in the course of a technical assistance project was handed over to the customer at project end. In addition, the customer received a customized software in order to run the information system on his infrastructure.