Re: Question about Traceability

Mike,

Thanks for this informative reply. I have let Bob know.

Charles

On Sun, 18 Apr 2021 10:56:51 -0400
Mike Prorock <mprorock@mesur.io> wrote:

> Excellent callout Charles.  Happy to discuss those elements a bit on
> the intro call.
> 
> The focus for the call is actually just on the VC side of things,
> e.g. what are they, and how do they work, along with what is their
> application in the supply chain world as a "101" level intro into
> various aspects of the CCG for folks that want to learn about things
> like Verifiable Credentials, their usage, and how they fit into the
> CCG.
> 
> This is, as you have called out, only a tiny piece of what is
> involved in food and ag traceability: how do we record the properties
> of various operations and components in the food and ag supply chain,
> independent of the tracing (both forward and backward) aspects that
> then link change of control and movement of items through the supply
> chain.  In practice (and this will be touched on in the 101
> discussion), VCs are one part of the data being exchanged and stored,
> in addition to all of the movement data, operations, and other items
> related to traceability.
> 
> VCs in supply chain are are typically related to (as in an inspection
> of a particular pallet), or represent items (package of avocados)
> that are being traced, and are largely independent of the method used
> to support the traceability functionality itself, e.g. immutable
> ledgers storing change of control or product movement, old school
> database stuff, etc  You can think of the VCs in this case as
> representing the things that tracing is applied to, along with
> metadata about those things.  Effectively they are a means to enable
> better track and trace.
> 
> While the VCs and vocabulary items described in the Traceability Vocab
> Specification themselves are a small piece of the traceability
> problem, they are an important and fundamental base on which the rest
> of traceability relies on, and by standardizing on a common language
> along with providing the ability to verify and securely operate on
> items described by that language we aid in building a path to where
> various traceability solutions can better interoperate and exchange
> information either across commodities, or between different legs on
> the supply chain.
> 
> For those interested in the broader issues surrounding traceability
> and food safety, the FDA has done an excellent job at capturing many
> aspects of traceability in relation to food safety, along with the
> data that must be collected to support that traceability in the
> Proposed Traceability Rule here:
> https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-modernization-act-fsma/fsma-proposed-rule-food-traceability
> 
> I would note that our efforts at mesur.io are supporting the use of
> VCs to represent data required by the proposed FDA rule, and that
> ultimately as that rule is finalized, the Traceability Vocab will end
> up with VCs that represent all aspects covered by the proposed rule,
> and we welcome collaboration from folks like Bob who clearly also
> have some experience on food safety and ag track and trace side of
> things on the Vocab itself:
> https://github.com/w3c-ccg/traceability-vocab
> 
> Mike Prorock
> CTO, Founder
> https://mesur.io/
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Apr 18, 2021 at 9:41 AM Charles E. Lehner <
> charles.lehner@spruceid.com> wrote:
> 
> > Dear CCG,
> >
> > I shared on the Secure Scuttlebutt Network about the upcoming
> > "Intro to VCs in Supply Chain" and about the Traceability Vocab.
> > Bob Haugen from Mikorizal Software responded with a question:
> >
> > > Looks to me like they are focusing on properties of
> > > products-to-be-traced, possibly so the actual tracing does not
> > > need to be done? Or not?
> > >
> > > Whereas Valueflows (and my previous experience in actual food
> > > supply chains) focus on tracing backward through the recorded
> > > material flows. https://valueflo.ws/appendix/track.html
> > >
> > > So if you had verifiable credentials of eg some food that was
> > > poisoned (eg e. coli contamination), that fact would most likely
> > > be verified (if at all) only at the point where the poison was
> > > discovered, but not to the source of the contamination (feeding
> > > animal body parts to other animals) which would most likely not
> > > have been verified even then. But by tracing back to the source
> > > CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operation) and in some cases source
> > > animal, the cause might be determined, and then the destinations
> > > of the other cuts of the same contaminated animal, or all animals
> > > from that CAFO, could be found for a recall.
> > >
> > > The US Food and Drug Administration (and I expect similar
> > > institutions in other countries) require all of those tracking and
> > > tracing records to be preserved and available for reporting. The
> > > tracking and tracing processes are then something like a web crawl
> > > through links from one event to the previous or next events.s.
> >
> > > [...] But this would be an active issue for us if and only if we
> > > are working with a network that wants to use VCs.
> > >
> > > P.S. my example above was a bit misleading. For feeding animal
> > > body parts to other animals, the problem would be mad cow disease
> > > (chronic wasting disease, or prions), and not e. coli.
> >
> > Would anyone have an answer or reference I could pass on to Bob? Or
> > might this be addressed in the 101?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Charles
> >
> >

Received on Sunday, 18 April 2021 19:02:05 UTC