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Cows Identified by Retinal Imaging
wackoman2112 writes "According to this article, ranchers on western cattle ranches are keeping track of their cattle with the "OptiReader," a small handheld which takes retinal scans. They scan a cow's eye and record information in the database about the animal's color, weight, and genetic linage. Hmmm... This could be justification for a YRO for animals."
inventory control is something to me that makes a lot of sense. people foamed at the mouth when RFID tags were to be put in clothes, but few realized that they're useless once they leave the store that owns the clothes. its just inventory control, to keep people from stealing said clothes.
farmers are doing it for more than just inventory control though, they're using it to easily determine which genetic lines produce the best milk producers, the best meat, etc. this is a good thing, it *should* lower the prices of milk and beef a bit, and it should improve the overall quality the steak on your table.
i'm all for this. technology for tracking isn't *all* bad.
"This could be justification for a YRO for animals."
Hmmmm. Yeah, that would be a great idea except for the fact that COWS CAN'T READ!
Believe it or not, RFID (or something similar) was proposed for livestock agriculture some time ago. When I was in college in the early nineties, a classmate of mine worked on a project to develop a better polymer to encase a unique radio transmitter. The job of the material was to protect the transmitter from disgestion as it rested at the bottom of one of the cow's stomachs (for the city slickers among you, cows have four stomachs -- one for each food group). Each cow could then be uniquely identified. I don't know how the technology [PDF] developed from then, but I'm sure the less intrusive the means of keeping track on the cattle (for both the cattle and the farmer), the better. ibhear
Even with this technology, ear tags will still be used some places to control parasites/pests. The real meat here (pun intended) is the connection to a secure central DB that can track the animals from ranch to market.