Animal registration
All EU member states are registering animals on an individual basis in electronic databases. These databases are based on EU regulations. In most member states the animal holder (mostly the farmer or the slaughterhouse) can use an electronic message to update the status of the animal in the database. The exchange of animal identification information is only standardized on national level, but not EU wide. Each member state has its own system, with different check digits and different types of barcodes on eartags and paper passport. For the international movements of animals the cross border information exchange is only done by paper documents. At present, a CEN EEG 14 workgroup is developing an electronic message to support the automatic information exchange in the field of international animal movements.
In this use-case, an animal is transported from a farm in one EU country to another for growing, and to a third country for slaughter. In connection to every movement the animal registers are updated in both delivering and receiving countries.
The use case describes the way partners intend to play their respective role, establish business relationship and share responsibilities to interact efficiently with the support of their respective information system.
It concerns the import/export cattle registration and the electronic animal passport. The aim is to specify the cross border exchange of information to enable business information to be re-used.
The cattle registration information exchange process is used between cattle registration offices and with EU authorities, in case of the international movement of bovine animals.
The cattle registration information exchange contains two basic cases, the intent to export or the import notification. The process is started by the exporting country registration office, or by the importing country registration office. In both cases, the information exchange is based on the same basic message.
The electronic animal passport is used by inspectors of authorities to identify and verify individual animals.
The electronic passport is an e-certificate. A livestock inspector can request the animal passport data from his own national cattle registration office. In case the animal is not in the national database the cattle registration office can request and retrieve the data from the issuing cattle registration office. The electronic animal passport can be used both on national and international level.
1. Cattle registration office information exchange.
This process details the mutual cattle registration data transmission between the cattle registration offices and the administrative partners like authorities (Min of Agriculture, EU-Traces).
The cattle registration data is created by the cattle registration office and is send to another partner in cattle registration issues.
If a bovine animal is moved from one country to another (export-import) the registration data of this animal has to be transferred from the cattle registration office in the exporting country to the cattle registration office of the importing country. Part of this information can be transferred to EU authorities.
2- The electronic animal passport
This process details the verification of animal to the cattle registration office and the administrative partners like authorities, by a veterinarian inspector, by an approved certified official document.
The inspector can request the data of the animal, issued by the national cattle registration office. The registration office submits the data, in case the animal is in the national registration. In case of animal which is on an international transport or is imported, registration office retrieves the data from the registration office of the export country. If the country is unknown, the tracing will start in the country the animal is born.
The electronic data is certified by the registration office. The electronic animal data retrieval can be equivalent to the paper animal passport information.
The development of the intra-community trade of living animals and the EU regulation make necessary to have a system which facilitate the data exchanges between firms and registration offices of the states in order to allow to get through the limits of papers and differences of languages. So the use case is very important for European agri-sector. The information exchanges are based on EU regulations for the bovine animal recording, the animal transport and the food safety.
It’s very important not to lose the traceability of the animals during the intra European exchanges of animal.
Besides, it allows a decrease of the time to transmit the notification information of animal movements and a decrease of the errors when typing the data. Another interest is the possibility of dematerialisation of the documents like the passport. This is yet in discussion at the European Commission DGSANCO. A pilot project named BOVEX is just finished and the conclusions must be soon told.
According to EU-Regulation 1760/2000, all member states established central national databases for bovine data, containing the whole lifecycle, “the animal history” of any cattle from origin (starting census, birth, import from other member state, import from third country, including simplified import immediately for slaughter), further on any single movement within the member states, up to leaving the member state (death, slaughter export to other EU country or export to third country).
So this use case is relevant Europe wide. The relevance of developing specific message for the use case can differ in different countries because the number of animal which are exported or imported can vary between the countries.
Actors
The actors that play a role in this use case are:
• holders
• National or regional cattle registration office
• authorities
• veterinarian inspector
Stakeholders (other than the mentioned actors)
• European Union
As the legislative body that implements regulation on food security and animal movements, they are involved in this use case.
• Retail
Retail promotes that the animal have good traceability, that we can say where they are born, where they come from. They have an interest in selling products that are well traced.
• Consumer
European consumers demand that the agro-sector produces safe food and that the traceability of the animals during the intra European exchanges of animal is not lost.
Relevant standards
UN/Cefact
The standards developed by UN/Cefact support “electronic business”. They cover a wider range of domains (financial, administrative, technical). In the technical working group on agriculture, a few business cases are covered or in development. For the use case “animal registration”, a BRS (business requirement specification) has been written by the work of a team of three countries: Netherlands, Deutschland and France. The purpose of the BRS was to define the animal registration data exchange processes for all animal registration offices and the development and installation of an electronic animal passport, using the UN/CEFACT Modeling Methodology (UMM) approach and Unified Modeling language to describe and detail the business processes and transactions involved. The aim is also to make a prototype between the three countries to test and after to integrate other countries.
The aims of this project are to identify the different data exchange processes between countries, to define a common data dictionary, to describe the data exchange process with the description of the messages that have to circulate between the countries and develop a message for the e-passport.
Dictionaries
In the CEN project, the team defined a common data dictionary which is described at the end of the BRS. One aim of the CEN project was to define common objects.
Lists of contents have begun to be harmonised by ICAR. It concerned the breed codes and the color codes.
Relevant legislation and regulations
EU-Regulation 1760/2000
EU-Regulation 820/97
Technologies
EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)
EDI can be one of the technology that can be used for the exchange of data between cattle registration office
SOA (Service Oriented Architecture)
Service Oriented Architecture is based on the exchange of data through web services. It is supported by a series of standards (e.g. XML, SOAP, WSDL, OGC standards). In many cases, the SOA architecture is connected to a back-end of transactional systems.
There is no variant for this use case.
The use case animal registration is divided in 3 sub use cases which are import notification, intent to export and the electronic animal passport.
Import notification
The holder of the animal notifies the cattle registration office about the arrival of the imported animal. The cattle registration office sends an import notification message with a request for the animal data to the cattle registration office of the country of export. The exporting cattle registration office checks the animal data about the export and replies to the importing cattle registration office by sending import notification status message and animal information. Both cattle registrations can update their registration. The export cattle registration office can close the file of the exported animal. The importing registration office checks the received status and animal data and accepts the animal registration.
Intent to export
The exporter of the animal informs the cattle registration office about his intent to export the animal. The cattle registration office sends a export notification message, including data, to the cattle registration office in the country of import.
The holder of the animal in the importing country informs his cattle registration office about the arrival of the imported animal. This cattle registration office checks the arrival information with the received export notification message. Then it sends an export notification status message including animal data to the exporting cattle registration office. The exporting cattle registration office verifies the export and replies with an export notice status message including animal data. Both cattle registrations can update their registration. The export cattle registration office can close the file of the exported animal. The importing registration office checks the received status and animal data and accepts the animal registration.
Collaboration between the uses cases.
The importing cattle registration office sends a notification of import message and receives an import notification status message or the exporting cattle registration office sends an intent to export message. The importing cattle registration office sends an import notification status message and receives an import notification status message.
After completing and checking these messages the export cattle registration office closes the file of the exported animal. The import cattle registration office registrates the animal.
The start event is the sending by the cattle registration office of an import notification message or an intent to export message.
The end event is the updating of the animal registration by the cattle registration office.
| BPM reference | Description | Attributes/Data |
|---|---|---|
| A | Imported animal data request from the import cattle registration office to the export one |
Details of importing office Details of exporting office Date of request Contact details Communication numbers Country code Country name Animal id Sex code Species code Breed code Colour coat code Mouvement type Arrival date |
| B | Imported animal data response from the export cattle registration office to the import one |
Details of importing office Details of exporting office Date of request Contact details Communication numbers Country code Country name Animal id Birth date Death date Sex code Mother Id Registrated birth location Species code Breed code Colour coat code 1..n Veterinarian events: date + type 1..n Period of presence in a holding: holding id, date of arrival, date of departure. Authority issuing the animal passport Export registration control status |
| C | Send animal data intended to export from the export cattle registration office to the import one |
Details of importing office Details of exporting office Date of request Contact details Communication numbers Country code Country name Animal id Birth date Death date Sex code Mother Id Registrated birth location Species code Breed code Colour coat code 1..n Veterinarian events: date, type. (date and type) 1..n periods of presence in a holding: holding id, date of arrival, date of departure. Movement between country (country, movement type, arrival date, departure date) Authority issuing the animal passport |
| D | Receive animal data from the import cattle registration office to the export one |
Details of importing office Details of exporting office Date of request Contact details Communication numbers Country code Country name Animal id Birth date Death date Sex code Mother Id Registered birth holding Species code Breed code Colour coat code 1..n : Veterinarian events: date and type 1..n Periods of presence in a holding : holding id, date of arrival, date of departure. Date of leaving the country. Date of arriving in the country Reason for arrival Authority issuing the animal passport Export notification status |
| E | Send a message of validation from the export cattle registration to the export one |
Details of importing office Details of exporting office Date of request Contact details Communication numbers Country code Country name Animal id Status of exported registration |
| F | Request for animal passport from the cattle registration office to the one of the country where the animal comes from |
Details of importing office Details of exporting office Date of request Contact details Communication numbers Country code Country name Animal id Sex code Species code Breed code Colour coat code |
| G | Send animal passport reply from the export cattle registration office to the import one |
Details of importing office Details of exporting office Date of request Contact details Communication numbers Country code Country name Animal id Birth date Death date Sex code Mother Id Holding of birth Species code Breed code Colour coat code 1..n Veterinarian events: date and type 1..n Periods of presence in a holding : holding id, date of arrival, date of departure. Date of leaving the country. Date of arriving in the country Reason for arrival Date of animal passport Identifier for the animal passport Version identifier National authority Issuing office |
The passports depend on the countries. There are national specifications.
The protocol to exchange data must be accepted in all the countries and must be connected to the national data bases.
For the moment, all international data exchanges about animal are based on paper documents. There is one example of data exchange between cattle registration offices :the case of Germany and Austria.
There are no widely accepted standards on the European level for the exchange of data required in this use case.
Commonly used data exchange standards in agriculture (like UN/Cefact) are very limited in their support of animal data.
Although more research and interaction with the agro-community should be performed to obtain a full list of recommendations, this could be a first starting point.
One of the core requirements for harmonisation would be the harmonisation of the relevant “code lists” that are used in data exchange. This point is begun for some aspects by ICAR organization. It’s also necessary to take care of the animal identification number.
The data exchange message has to be based on a well-known standard that can be supported by all the countries. For example, using the UN/CEFACT standard could be a good thing.
To implement this use case, it can’t be done by a point to point system but it is necessary to develop an adapted network like a hub.
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