GPS Tells The Life Story Of Your Poultry

Poultry farmers are now putting tracking devices on their chickens to prove whether they were, in fact, cage-free, organic or wild caught.

It's not as absurd as it sounds, says Robyn Metcalfe, a food historian who teaches at the University of Texas at Austin. A GPS tracker strapped to the leg of a chicken, says Metcalfe, means "that people who potentially will buy that chicken will know every step that that chicken has taken."

ZhongAn Online, a Chinese insurance company, has already outfitted more than 100,000 chickens with trackers. The sensors upload information, such as how much exercise each chicken gets and what it ate. The company says the technology will be on 2,500 farms in China by next year.

Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons