Electronic identification (EID) in cattle tags will be available in NI on a voluntary basis from August 2026, a senior DAERA official has said.

Speaking at Stormont last week, Darrin Fullerton said changes to the department’s livestock traceability system have been made and local tag suppliers have been notified.

“They will get a period of six to eight weeks to ensure their systems are compatible, so the latest date we have for rolling this out now is the start of August,” he said.

Last December, DAERA published proposals to introduce EID cattle tags on a voluntary basis in 2026, before being made compulsory in 2027.

Neal Gartland from DAERA said responses to a public consultation on the compulsory use of EID in cattle are currently being assessed by department officials.

“We imagine that the minister will have final advice in the autumn for a future decision,” he said.

The voluntary roll out of EID cattle tags aims to align with the new Bovine Genetics Project where tissue sampling for genotyping is set to begin in September 2026.

“Tissue sampling tags under this project would also incorporate EID functionality for those who wish to use it,” Gartland confirmed.

In terms of compulsory use, the DAERA official pointed out that England and Wales have plans to roll out EID cattle tags on a mandatory basis in 2027.

Scotland also plans to introduce EID cattle tags next year, although it has opted for high frequency tags, which differ from the low frequency tags that will be used elsewhere in the UK.

Gartland pointed out that low frequency EID cattle tags are already used in the Republic of Ireland and the technology has been used across the NI sheep sector since 2010.

“EID offers opportunities to simplify the capture and recording of animal information by reducing errors associated by misreading visual tags and improving efficiency across farms, markets, and abattoirs,” he said.