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Abstract — The requirement of traceability of increasingly important condition for gaining confidence
information for food is an increasingly important and loyalty of the consumer.
condition for gaining the confidence and loyalty of the The application of information technology (IT) tools
consumer. The concept of geotraceability arose through allows to storage, in a database livestock, activities such
the association between knowledge of a geographical as animal crossing, artificial inseminations, nutritional
nature with the traditional information provided by and sanitary aspects of each animal, weight, pasture
traceability. This study explored the use of design of quality, animal mobility, among other data. However,
spatial information inherent to biophysical parameters of when the subject is sustainable production, it is of
the pasture (vegetation indices and evapotranspiration) fundamental importance that the analysis of decision -
combined with data collection on the mobility of cattle in making covers a better comprehension of the impact
pasture areas for extraction and availability of spatially factors of the production system. Therefore, elements
explicit information that can assist sustainable cattle essential to the environment are necessary for the
production. From the trajectories, it was observed the implantation of a system that besides allowing safe food
existence of a typical behavioral pattern of the animals, is also ecologically correct.
such as the preference to walk towards clean and flat Rural environment management is directly related to the
terrain, search for areas that present better thermal geographical space: land use and coverage, topography,
comfort or regions near to supplementary feeding (salt, climatology, soil type, water resources, among others.
food, etc.) and the access to water. Overall, it is noticed The study of geographic space involves a series of
that in a pasture environment, the animals prioritize their knowledge and information that can be more easily and
primary physiological needs, that is, water consumption quickly worked by using new technologies [2]. In the last
and thermal regulation. The results are promising in years, the use of geotechnology and geo-information by
terms of applied research for behavioral analysis of public and private organs and companies has grown
animals and environmental interactions associated with considerably, primarily to support project planning,
mobility. The technique used in the study has the potential execution, and monitoring processes [3].
to be applied in the implementation of cattle production By using geotechnology and geo-information in an
geodecision systems that support good production integrated analysis of the production processes of cattle
practices and favor the quality and safety of food with breeding, covering not only the traditional practices
environmental sustainability. production at local plan or punctual level (insemination,
Keywords — animal behavior, cattle raising, geo vaccines, weighing, etc.), but also those that provide a
decision system, geo traceability, sustainability. space-temporal vision, the concept of geotraceability has
arisen [4, 5, 6].
I. INTRODUCTION Geotraceability is the ability to describe the history, use,
Consumers regard safety the most critical ingredient in and location of a product, allowing the tracking and
food [1]. The repercussion of hazard caused by the monitoring of production until its consumption [5]. The
ingestion of some food consumed in any part of the world space component stands out for adding value to market
is a piece of news that spreads in few instants, regardless products, to the certification and labeling of retail
of the distance of the occurrence. In this context, the marketing and communication with consumers, with the
requirement of traceability of food information is an potential to induce further policies for the sector. In short,
geotraceability is defined as the association between
Fig. 1. Study area location. GeoEye-1 image on RGB (3,2,1) composition merged with panchromatic band.
operation of the collar; and a feeding management
Animal mobility data were collected through the element so the power consumption is as low as possible.
application of GPS and transponder adapted on resistant Figure 3 shows the architecture of electronic collars.
leather collars and placed on bovines (Figure 2).
Fig. 4. General architecture of the base station [9]. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Figure 5 shows the trajectories performed by four animals
Based on the collected position, the collar verifies its with individual records collected through collars # 0001
proximity to the base station, activates the UHF radio, (Figure A), # 0003 (Figure B), # 0004 (Figure C) and #
and transfers the collected data to the base station. After 0006 (Figure D). Image GeoEye-1 allows identification of
that, data can be transmitted from the base station to the pasture sites that have the trajectories performed by the
information system in two ways: (1) manually by using a bovines. These trajectories refer to the first evaluations of
flash drive; (2) automatically over a TCP/IP network. the use of bovine collars in pasture areas in the state of
Figure 5 shows the base station set next to the balance Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. The results obtained in the
scale (Figure 5a) and the bovine drinker (Figure 5b). study were promising in terms of research applied for
animal behavioral analysis and environmental interactions
associated with mobility [12].
Although the pasture area is not very extensive, from the
trajectories of each animal it was possible to observe the
existence of a typical behavior pattern of the animals.
Silveira et al. [13] observe that cattle are gregarious
animals (live in groups) and do not separate easily from
herd companions to mix with other animals. Another
critical issue is that animals, in search of food sites, prefer
to use established paths, streets, open spots, than to
Fig. 5. Visualization of the base set next to balance scale penetrate dense shrub areas or to cross rugged terrain
(A) and the drinker (B). areas [14]. In this case, it can be observed in Figure 5
some common trajectories associated with the direction of
One of the objectives of geotraceability is to be able to the contour lines, and this may indicate that the animals
lead to good practices through the adoption of tools for prefer to walk towards clean and flat terrain. It is also
data acquisition and treatment from different sources and pointed out some trajectories close to the picket fence;
formats (text, raster, and vector) and the diffusion of similar behavior was observed by Handcock et al. [12].
spatial information when using geographic information
systems [7], shared through the Internet as WebGIS
system, denominated SOMABRASIL [10]. In this case,