A proposal to roll out cattle electronic identification (EID) is to be put to industry representatives later this year, with DAERA officials working on a potential way forward.

The guidance states that EID tags in cattle will reduce errors in movement documents

“The department considers that the introduction of bovine EID will improve the robustness of the traceability system,” a DAERA guidance document reads.

The guidance states that EID tags in cattle will reduce errors in movement documents and improve health and safety due to less restraining of animals to visually read tags.

DAERA states that the technology will generate “significant efficiencies throughout the supply chain” and will “reduce costs for both industry and the department”.

Costs

However, the introduction of EID is likely to increase tagging costs for NI farmers.

Tag suppliers currently offer bovine EID as an optional management tag. For newborn calves, an EID button tag along with a BVD tissue tag costs around £1 per calf more than a standard tag set.

Across all calves registered in NI, it could equate to an extra cost to farmers of over £500,000 each year.

In Scotland, the plan was for a new bovine EID system to be available later this summer

At present, there is no timeline for the introduction of bovine EID in NI, but the move toward the technology also appears to be the direction of travel in other parts of the UK.

In Scotland, the plan was for a new bovine EID system to be available later this summer and for electronic tagging of new-born calves to be compulsory from summer 2021. However, this has been delayed due to coronavirus.

First steps

Initial steps in the roll-out of bovine EID have already been completed by DAERA. The last digit in an animal’s tag number is to be dropped to make tag numbers in NI compatible with a new EID system.

Currently, there are five digits used to identify individual cattle in a herd – the four-digit animal identifier, plus the check digit (eg 1234-1).

An EID-based system can use a maximum of 15 digits to identify an animal. The plan is for the current country identifier “UK” to be replaced with a country code of 826.

The other option was to keep the check digit and reduce herd numbers from six to five digits

The next two numbers will identify NI as a region of the UK, with the number 19 to be used for this.

It leaves 10 digits - six for the herd number and four for the individual animal number.

The other option was to keep the check digit and reduce herd numbers from six to five digits. However, this option got less support from industry representatives during a consultation exercise last year.

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