SO. ST. PAUL, MN /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Digital Angel Corp., an advanced technology company in the field of rapid and accurate identification, location tracking, and condition monitoring of high-value assets, announced that it signed a distribution agreement with a Brazilian company to begin selling electronic RFID (radio frequency identification) livestock tags, antennas, and readers throughout Brazil, the largest beef exporting country in the world and home to nearly 200 million cattle, which is twice the size of the U.S. market. Digital Angel also announced that it has begun manufacturing livestock tags in Argentina.
Digital Angel has signed an agreement with Digitaltronic, a Brazilian company located in the cattle rich state of Sao Paolo. Reflecting the impact of this new agreement, Digital Angel now has a sales presence in six Latin American countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, and Uruguay.
Digital Angel president and chief executive officer Kevin N. McGrath said the company had already received two orders with a combined valued is more than $200,000 from Digitaltronic, a company whose executives have strong ties to the cattle industry.
"We continue to make steady progress penetrating the rapidly expanding South American market," McGrath said. "We believe Digitaltronic provides us a very strong footprint in Brazil, which is moving quickly toward electronic tagging as a means to eliminate Hoof and Mouth Disease and enhance cattle traceability, which should help bolster their already strong beef export industry. Furthermore, our manufacturing facility in Argentina will help us to be much more competitive throughout the region. Because we have the superior technology in the livestock tagging industry, we believe an entrance into Brazil and our stronger presence throughout South America are important milestones for Digital Angel."
The two Brazilian livestock regulatory agencies, Embrapa (Brazilian Agriculture and Research Corporation) and SISBOV (Brazilian System of Identification and Certification of Origin for Bovine and Buffalo) are working together to develop and promote electronic traceability to help eradicate disease in Brazil. According to the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), the area devoted to the cattle industry in Brazil covers more than 1.8 million square miles.
About Digital Angel Corp.
Digital Angel Corp. develops and deploys sensor and communications technologies that enable rapid and accurate identification, location tracking, and condition monitoring of high-value assets. Applications for the company's products include identification and monitoring of humans, pets, fish, poultry, and livestock through its patented implantable microchips; location tracking and message monitoring of vehicles and aircraft in remote locations through systems that integrate GPS and geosynchronous satellite communications; and monitoring of asset conditions such as temperature and movement, through advanced miniature sensors.
Digital Angel Corp. is majority-owned by Applied Digital Inc. For more information about Digital Angel, please visit the company's Web site.