AIM UK TAKES PARTNERSHIP ROLE IN NEW GLOBAL PROJECT
ON PRECISION LIVESTOCK FARMING

AIM UK’s participation in European Union-funded projects to raise awareness of the potential of our industry’s technologies to revolutionise business continues with its involvement as a partner in BrightAnimal – a new project looking at precision livestock farming (PLF).

Over the next two years, BrightAnimal will consider how identification and location technologies can help SME producers world-wide to optimise the use of feed and other resources, to improve yield factors and to raise standards of animal health and welfare.

Delegates from five continents attended the project’s kick-off meeting in Halifax and which saw a valuable exchange of opinion, experiences and concerns about the role of PLF in improving livestock output and quality.

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CASAGRAS : what it really means

CASAGRAS is an ungainly acronym for a fairly straightforward concept, but for the record, we should see how the word came about. It stands for :

Coordination and Support Action (CSA) for Global RFID-related Activities and Standardisation

= CASAGRAS

CASAGRAS is a two year project funded by the European Commission. As its name suggests, it is committed to coordinating and support action directed at making recommendations in respect of standards and developments relating to RFID. What is not obvious from the title is that it is directed at the emerging concept of the Internet of Things*.

Historically, Europe has been a leader in RFID and the EC has already invested significant sums in research. CASAGRAS will help consolidate Europe’s position in the field by engaging with the widest range of interested parties on a world-wide basis.

CASAGRAS is an outward looking project. To ensure the relevance and authority of its work and recommendations it has recruited partners from Korea, Japan, United States and China, in addition to leading experts from across Europe.

Because CASAGRAS is required to make recommendations about future standards and a framework for RFID it has taken a broad view of emerging concepts such as the Internet of Things and the World Object Web (WOW).

These will be enabled, and will grow, through the improved development and application of RFID – but RFID alone will not be able to realise their potential to change the way we live and work. Other technologies and ICT disciplines will be involved.

In addition, CASAGRAS is faced with the challenge of making recommendations on global coding. Agreement here is essential if the commercial and social benefits of RFID are to be widely realised.

More detailed information about the CASAGRAS project, its aims and objectives and the partner organisations can be found on the website www.rfidglobal.eu

* “A world where ‘things’ can automatically communicate with computers and with each other, providing services for the benefit of human kind.”