Anger over changes to mandatory EID tagging

Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed has announced changes to the Department’s plan to roll out mandatory electronic tagging for all sheep. The timeline announced on 2 May to extend electronic tagging to all sheep moving off a holding from 1 October 2018 has been delayed and will now be phased in two instalments.

The extension of mandatory tagging to all sheep has been pushed out to 1 June 2019 and all sheep moving off a holding will be required to be electronically identified with two options available:

a A single electronic slaughter tag, where lambs less than 12 months of age are moved directly from the birth holding to a slaughter plant.

b An electronic tag set, in the case of all other sheep movements.

There will still be changes to the national sheep identification system on 1 October 2018, with tag suppliers no longer selling permanent tags. This leaves two types of tags available to sheep farmers from 1 October 2018:

a Single electronic slaughter tags (for animals less than 12 months for lambs moving directly from the farm of birth to slaughter).

b Electronic tag sets (for all other sheep movements).

Higher once-off payment

The minister’s announcement in May of a once-off payment of up to €50 to help farmers cover the cost of mandatory electronic tagging received widespread criticism from farmers and farm organisations. The latest announcement includes a doubling of this payment, with up to €100 now on offer. The payment will apply to the first order of electronic tags post 1 October 2018 and the Department says this will be paid automatically, with their records used to calculate the amount due to each farmer under the scheme.

Minister Creed said: “Since the announcement in May, my Department and I have engaged constructively with stakeholders in relation to the practical concerns raised in relation to the introduction of the new system. Having carefully considered the issues raised, I am pleased to be in a position to now respond positively to these concerns, while still delivering on the benefits of extending electronic identification to the industry as a whole.”

He said that changes to the previously announced introduction on 2 May will also address farmer concerns on using up existing stocks of tags. “One of the main concerns was the need for an appropriate transition period for farmers to use up already purchased stocks of tags, to simplify arrangements for store lamb fatteners who would have purchased lambs already tagged with the ‘old’ tags, and to enable marts and factories put in place the necessary infrastructure and systems – the staged implementation of the new requirements takes account of the varying concerns.

“The effectiveness of EID is enhanced by the participation of marts and slaughter plants in electronically capturing the identification number of sheep and providing a printout to the farmer for association with the dispatch docket. This enables farmers to record only the total number of sheep consigned on the dispatch docket rather than the 15-digit individual tag numbers – this saves time and improves accuracy.”

Mart managers have reacted angrily to Minister Creed’s announcement. Ray Doyle, ICOS livestock and environmental executive, said: “The mart sector feels very let down, we had numerous meetings with the Department in recent weeks but these have proved pointless, with no effort to take on board our concerns. The Minister’s announcement has essentially left his Department complicit in manipulating and distorting the free selling of sheep. The fact that animals going direct to slaughter will require just one electronic tag while all others will require an EID tag set is a disincentive from both a labour and financial perspective for farmers to trade factory-fit lambs through marts. The meat industry must surely be overjoyed by this move, which removes competition from the market.”

Doyle says the move has gone beyond what is required under EU legislation. “EU legislation clearly states sheep can have a single electronic tag when intended for slaughter. The Department has overlooked all common sense in negotiations with their desire to exceed EU legislation by only allowing sheep going direct for slaughter to possess one tag.”

Marts are also frustrated that the Department has not taken on board their proposals to offer farmers a more simple recording procedure. “The Department have introduced a financial aid package (40% grant on maximum investment of €25,000) for marts to become central points of recording, which we welcome. However, we proposed that farmers could bring their animals to the mart and that marts would read and give a printout of their dispatch document which unfortunately has fallen on deaf ears.”

IFA president Joe Healy said it is clear from the most recent announcement that Minister Creed is not listening to sheep farmers.

“Sheep farmers are very annoyed with the Minister over his failure to support them in the fodder crisis and the way he allowed the factories impose additional operational costs on them under the clean lamb policy. The minister is now piling additional costs on top of sheep farmers with EID.

“Proposing a once-off subvention of €100 on tags completely underestimates the costs involved. Both the IFA and the Department have calculated that EID will cost an additional €2m per annum or up to €14m during the FoodWise programme. The minister needs to stop spending sheep farmers’ money and step up to the mark on the real costs of EID that he is imposing on the sector.”

IFA national sheep chair Sean Dennehy said deferring the implementation date for EID to June 1 2019 is a help. He added that EID cannot go ahead until a proper system of movement recording is put in place by the Department in all outlets.

ICSA sheep chair John Brooks has said while some sense has prevailed, the substantive issues have not gone away. “With a new start date of June 2019 for the introduction of EID mandatory tagging, the minister is essentially just kicking the can down the road. The extra costs associated will be ongoing for sheep farmers so if the Department and the meat industry wish to proceed with this, they should pay for it on an ongoing basis.

“There is absolutely no appetite among sheep farmers for this as costs are continually rising while incomes are falling. In addition, EID tagging won’t alter the current batch system of traceability that meat plants use after slaughter. ICSA therefore believes it is disingenuous to imply that mandatory tagging is a requirement to access a myriad of new markets. Indeed, relevant bodies now have until next June to show us exactly what additional markets they can secure based on mandatory EID alone. That will be the real proof.”

Meat Industry Ireland (MII) has welcomed the announcement. Cormac Healy, MII senior director, said: “We believe it is an important next step in better positioning Irish lamb in the marketplace to compete for key EU accounts and for new international markets access.”

He said that “while the transitional arrangements set out by the minister for the rollout of EID will effectively see out the hogget season ahead (2018 lamb/hogget crop), we would expect that the 2019 lamb crop will be presented with EID tags. It is the appropriate juncture to make the changeover and affords a fair period of notice.”

Healy added “EID will underpin our sheep identification and traceability system and will put the sector on a sound footing for future development, particularly in terms of international market access. The full rollout of EID must be used as a platform to conclude access for Irish lamb to markets such as the USA, Japan, Gulf states, China and southeast Asia.”