Co-founder's passion for red meat industry
MELITA SMITH and her husband David have taken their passion for the red meat industry and co-founded Ceres Tag, a smart ear tag for livestock.
Mrs Smith was a school teacher before becoming an entrepreneur.
She will be speaking about Ceres Tag as a spotlight speaker at the upcoming QRRRWN Conference.
The Smiths saw a technology gap while working on the family property in Kumbia.
“My husband is an engineer and together we were just helping out on the property and we saw there was a lot of opportunity to bring new technology to the red meat industry,” Mrs Smith said.
“We thought we’ve been doing this the same way for a long time, there must be a way to make this more efficient.
“It was a conversation around the table after a day working in the cattle yards.
“We spoke to other people and we got a lot of encouragement. We looked into the industry and there wasn’t really anything like it.”
Mrs Smith said the plan for the Ceres Tag was to be one system from paddock to plate.
“It will have GPS positioning – you will get an alert if it breaks out from a boundary, movement monitoring so we can see if an animal is behaving unusually and might be sick.
“You will be able to integrate it into existing farm management software.
“We’ve also improved the retention system of the ear tag so you don’t have ear tag loss. At the moment there is up to 30 per cent loss of ear tags. There is no use having a smart ear tag if it falls off in the paddock.
“We are working on becoming NLIS compliant. We want this one tag to do all of those jobs, including the traceability and management of cattle.”
The Ceres Tag will use solar power for the tags in order to be NLIS compliant.
“To be NLIS compliant we need to not have battery replacement in that tag. So we will do all the monitoring without having to replace a battery.
“If you have to tamper with that tag you can’t be NLIS compliant.
“So that energy harvesting is an important part of that tag.”
Mrs Smith said she was excited to share her passion at the QRRRWN Conference.
“It’s exciting to be able to share what we’re doing and also to inspire other people to get up and grow their ideas into a real business,” she said.
“Especially one that will assist the dynamic rural industries.”
The Ceres Tag should be commercially available by 2020.
“We have the MLA AGM in November and we will have a live demonstration from a trial. We will have another lot of trials next year,” she said.
“We have a CSIRO herd in Townsville with prototype tags.
“So by the time we go to market we will have a complete product that will do what we say it’s going to do. Next year will very much be a refinement year.
“We will be commercial by Easter 2020. People will be able to buy tags.”