The Animal Identification and Movement (AIM) system should not be open to third parties to view, ICOS national marts executive Ray Doyle told delegates at the Beef Forum in Dublin on Wednesday. Instead, Doyle said access to animal movement data should be restricted to the Department of Agriculture to manage disease outbreaks.

“Other EU countries do not allow third parties to access all prior movement data,” said Doyle. “What we have a big problem with is the fact that the AIM data is being used in reverse by factories and retailers to penalise farmers based on the number of movements of their livestock.”

AIM is facilitating a serious contradiction in the market

“AIM is facilitating a serious contradiction in the market,” claimed Doyle. “On the one hand, we’re promoting our Irish green image abroad, which relies on pasture based production, and this advantage is underpinned by movements from farm to farm, as cattle move through their rearing and onwards towards higher levels of nutrition at maturity.”

ICOS argues that such movements also increase the content of beneficial omega-3 and conjugated linoleic acid in meat.

’Distorting measure’

“While AIM is used by hundreds of agents and dealers to record these movements, this is projected as a negative quality parameter by the factories who are effectively using AIM movement records as a trade distorting measure to pay lower prices,” Doyle added.

He said that while factories cite consumer demand to reduce the number of animal movements over animal welfare concerns, “there is no factual basis for this”.

Read more

Editorial: with consolidation must come full transparency

Long read: why do farmers and plcs struggle to run beef factories?