Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed has conceded that the mandatory EID tagging of sheep is a cost to farmers and has insulted farmers by offering them €50 towards tag costs, Wicklow IFA sheep representative Selena MacKenzie has said.

“It’s not going to cost us €50. The average sheep farmer with a 100 ewe flock? It’s more than €50 when you put tags in their ears. Let him put his hand in his pocket and pay for the tags.

“The cost is being thrown back at us.”

Listen to "Farm organisations react to EID tagging" on Spreaker.

Price takers

She said that yet again farmers are the price takers and that the cost of tagging is being thrown back at them.

“Let the stakeholders step up, if they think it’s such a good idea. I believe that it’s an operational charge and it’s their operation that’s failing whether it be in the boning yards or on their line.

“We know our sheep when they go in. They have a tag, they have a system that’s already working and I resent the fact that the cost is being put back on the primary producers again and again, all through the system,” she said.

Kildare IFA sheep representative Liam Heaney added that the current slaughter tag in use “gives identity and traceability and the other will do no more”.

Protest

Meanwhile on Monday, the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) staged a protest outside Agriculture House on Kildare Street in opposition to the introduction of mandatory tagging.

ICSA sheep chair John Brooks said: “It costs the average Teagasc profit monitor farmer €86 to produce a lamb.

Listen to "ICSA protest outside Ag House" on Spreaker.

“So when the minister adds €1 cost to a lamb producing €14 profit, he is imposing a 7% income cut. This compares badly with EU proposals to cut CAP direct payments by 4%.”

Proposal

He added that the proposal for a one-off payment of €50 was really rubbing farmers up the wrong way.

“Does the minister really believe we can be bought off for €50? You’d give it to a youngster for their Holy Communion but it doesn’t make up for a permanently imposed cost leading to a 7% cut in sheep farmers’ profits. That’s on lowland farms.

“The situation is even worse for hill farmers who are being asked to fund an extra euro when selling store lambs from the hills that might only be worth €20 to €30.”

Kevin Comiskey, Leitrim IFA

There has been a total lack of communication with the farmers from the minister on EID. We met with the Minister on Tuesday [of last week] and we put it strongly to him that he has done absolutely nothing for farmers. For the last two years there has been huge problems out there, between the fodder crisis and everything, and he’s given nothing to sheep farmers. It’s all about cost. The farmer has to bear the cost on all these things. The other key stakeholders in this need to bear some of the cost.

Denis O’Leary, west Cork IFA

We’ve been asked to carry all the costs on our shoulders – we have enough. The minister is in a good place in west Cork, where he can see what’s happening on the sheep farms around him. If he took just a small bit of time to look around and see what’s happening he’d have a good idea and maybe he’d have a different view of what he’s bringing in.The cost is a huge problem. We can’t bear any more of that. We have a tagging system, it is working we don’t need to go changing it. If the car is not broken we don’t need to fix it.

Pat Chambers, Mayo IFA

I think this minister has let us down. If you look back at last January/February he brought in the Clean Livestock Policy (CLP), [with] no consultation whatsoever. It’s the same with the EID tagging.

People don’t realise the year that sheep farmers have put in. There’s no need for EID. Leave the system that’s there, that is working well, leave it there.