The B.C. provincial government announced late last week it is taking a proactive approach to food and livestock traceability by partnering with the Government of Canada to help fund traceability programs.

Traceability systems provide important information about where a plant, animal or food product came from and its journey along the supply chain.

This information can be a useful tool for protecting public health, food safety and animal health, and for reducing response time in an emergency situation. If a problem occurs, this information can also help limit economic and environmental impacts, protect brand reputation and maintain market access for agri-businesses.

Funding is available through four traceability programs under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership:

• Traceability Knowledge Transfer, to support industry associations and organizations to bring in traceability speakers to educate members.
• Traceability Adoption offers cost-shared project funding to agriculture, agri-food and seafood businesses to cover up to 70% of project costs that support the purchase and installation of traceability systems, practices, technologies or infrastructure (up to a maximum of $16,000).
• Livestock Tag Reader Rebate offers a rebate to cover 70% of the cost to purchase and install approved livestock tag readers (up to a maximum of $3,500).
• Traceability Value Chain offers cost-shared funding (70% of project costs) to support sector organizations or multiple agri-food or seafood businesses along a value chain to purchase or install traceability systems, practices, technologies or infrastructure to enhance traceability among project partners (up to a maximum of $50,000).

For additional information on the Canadian Agricultural Partnership.

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