Identification and Traceability of Agricultural Products

Mandar Chaudhary and Rahul Bhadauriya

B.E.(C.E.), Semester IV

LDRP Institute of Technology and Research, Gandhinagar,Gujarat,INDIA

Web: www.ldrp.ac.in

X-Files, Xenesis 2010

Presentation Outline

Challenges
Potential of Technology in solving issues
Architecture of Proposed System
Implementation Strategy
Related Work and Projects
Conclusion

Challenges

There is no provision for effective communication between buyers and sellers.
- Buyer would like to know the source, date of delivery, mode of transport and intermediate phases of agro produce to check quality.
- Seller would like to improve quality of products and services by providing relevant information related to products.
In the past few years there has been increasing incidents related to food safety hazards such as
- worms in cadbury chocolates,
- microbial contamination of fresh produce,
- dioxin in poultry and few others.
These challenges have contributed to the significance of identification and traceability.
System security.

Role of Technology

Radio Frequency ID(RFID) tags and Readers
- RFID tags can be attached to the containers in which the food products have been kept.
- RFID readers can be used to detect and verify the RFID tags on each container.
Geographic Information System (GIS)
- The GIS can be used to locate the farmers village as well as to keep trace the food products.
- The farmers and consumers can use the GIS to see the status of their containers.
Mobile devices and phones
- The farmers and consumers can use the GPRS system available on the mobile phones to perform the required transactions.

Database
- A database will store the information pertaining to the farmers' crop produce, location of his village and the RFID allocated to his/her container/s.
- Another database will store the above information along with information of the consumers, such as the quantity of the agro produce he/she wants and their location.

Architecture of Proposed System

Implementation Strategy

Farmers/sellers can register their agro produce, village location through respective web portals using internet and GPS enabled mobile devices.
Web based portals will act as bridge between buyers and sellers.
On registration of their agro produce each farmer will be allocated a unique RFID number which will be assigned on the container carrying the food product.
Farmers/sellers and buyers can carry out and trace transactions using RFID tags.
Similarly, consumers can register for the quantity of their food products, variety and the assumed time limit within which they want food product to be delivered.
Database: to store and maintain transactions.
UNICODE(8/16 bit) will be used to store the information in local language.
Verification of the food products in the containers can be done using the RFID readers while receiving the food products.
Consumer will receive container at the site as mentioned in the order.

Future Work

Development of graphical user interfaces that can be installed on mobile devices.
There is a need to develop cost effective RFID tags and readers so that people can acquire the technology in an economical manner.
Use of Dash7 technology can be feasible as it operates on low power batteries and is cost effective as compared to RFID devices.

Conclusion

The above system can improve food safety for the consumers.
Quality assurance can provided to the buyers.
Farmers can get their expected prices, thus making them self sufficient.
The role of the middlemen/brokers is minimized .
Negotiations between buyers and sellers is possible.
This system can also be applied to other modules such as dairy system.

References

IEEE Spectrum, Edition February 2010.
National Agriculture Research Center, Japan
Radio-frequency identification
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-frequency_identification#Regulation_and_standardization.
STMicroelectronics, India http://www.st.com/stonline/leadfree/identific.htm
Dr. Ajit Maru ,Senior Knowledge Officer,