GS1 Canada, a non-profit agency that maintains global standards for identifying goods and locations, will register Ontario farmers in a project with OnTrace, the provincial food traceability agency, to allow buyers to track food back to its home farm.
GS1 will work with OnTrace to give Ontario farmers access to the GS1 global location number (GLN) system, which will be linked to farm premises or farm businesses in the province — the first such arrangement in the Canadian ag industry, the agency said.
The 13-digit GLN is a “key” for Ontario farmers to take part in standardized electronic business interactions up and down the food supply chain, GS1 said in a release Tuesday.
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It described the GLN as “a unique and unambiguous identification of trading parties and their locations for supply chain use, on a global scale.”
“Our contribution of GLNs will promote the competitiveness of Ontario agriculture and agri-food and provide a value-added component to On Trace’s premises registry for primary producers,” said GS1 senior vice-president Mike Sadiwnyk in the release.
GS1 Canada and OnTrace will start formally assigning GLNs to Ontario farms in the first half of this year, the two agencies said, starting with pre-production testing before mid-year.
Both are “committed to working together to help agriculture and agri-food businesses and the government of Ontario meet their food traceability goals,” they said in the release.
