An integrated wireless terminal for data acquisition in agricultural product traceability system

The significant link between farms and supermarkets has a far-reaching influence on the circulation pattern and traceability of agricultural products and supermarket business structure. This article presents a new platform called the integrated wireless traceability terminal (WTT) solution for agricultural products traceability information collection and packaging procedure integration. It collects traceability data such as package weight, field number, and other origin information about the corresponding address of farm or company. Meanwhile, it will print a traceability label which is used by the consumer or administrators to query traceability information through the internet. A test evaluation of the WTT solution is performed during vegetable harvest time in a large organic agricultural products company. Compared to the current traditional packaging procedure, a statistical analysis shows that this solution not only decreases the packaging time (total time for packing a package) about 15%, but also reduces the total material cost by approximately 37%. In addition, the traceability content is more detailed and precise than traditional method. These results suggest that the WTT solution can be reliably used for packaging agricultural products and traceability information acquisition. © 2014 American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers