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Last week’s announcement by Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed that electronic tagging will be extended across the entire sheep flock from 1 October has received a strong backlash from many farmers and farm organisations. The rule means that any sheep sold or moving off farm from 1 October 2018 must have an electronic ear tag.
Lambs under 12 months of age and leaving their holding of birth for direct slaughter will require at least a single electronic tag while sheep moving for any other reason (farm-to-farm, mart sales, slaughter, temporary grazing) will be required to possess an EID tag set comprising one electronic tag (or bolus) and a corresponding conventional/permanent tag.
Farmer frustration is stemming from two avenues. The main grievance is that farmers are being asked to carry the increased costs while some producers with a season’s tags on hand are concerned that they will have to forego the investment if tags not used are rendered invalid on 1 October, as is currently the case.
The table above looks at the potential increase in costs taking five different flock sizes of 50 ewes, 100 ewes, 150 ewes, 250 ewes and 500 ewes.
The example works on the premises of the flock rearing 1.4 lambs, with option 1 operating a closed flock with a replacement rate of 20% and drafting 50% of lambs available for sale for slaughter and 50% for other avenues. Option two takes a farm selling all lambs with 70% destined for slaughter and 30% traded in marts or farm-to-farm sales.
Slaughter tags are taken as increasing in cost from 18c to €1.00, an additional 82c/tag, while the average increase in switching from a single conventional tag to an electronic and conventional tag is taken as rising from 35c to €1.35, a lift of €1/tag.
Small flocks with an average flock of 50 ewes will see annual costs rising by upwards of €50 to €60, while a larger flock of 250 ewes will see costs rise from €270 to over €300 in the systems calculated. It must be remembered that this is based on low levels of productivity and flocks operating at high levels of prolificacy will be hit with much higher costs.
The argument can be made that costs will be lower in some hill farms with lower productivity but there is also the issue in hill flocks of store lambs realising a low value and an extra euro per head in cost being added on to a light store lamb which may be worth €30 to €50.
Looking at costs on a national level, there were 2.5m lambs/hoggets processed in 2017. Allowing in the region of 320,000 lambs/hoggets being imported from Northern Ireland for direct slaughter and taking an increase in costs of a round figure of 90c/animal would see the sheep sector bear additional costs just shy of €2m per annum.
Minister Creed says that the introduction of electronic tagging will assist in maintaining existing markets and in securing new international outlets for sheepmeat. He also maintains that the introduction of EID will “significantly reduce the record-keeping requirements for sheep farmers moving sheep to livestock marts, slaughter plants and export assembly centres”. The meat industry will be a big beneficiary in this regard, with electronic tagging having the potential to streamline recording procedures.
MII’s Cormac Healy said: “The extension of EID to all sheep ensures that Ireland keeps pace with developments in other major sheep-producing member states in the EU. This is critically important to the positioning of Irish lamb in the marketplace and to competing for key customer accounts.” Healy adds that the announcement will be an important enabler to progressing applications to new international markets such as the US, Japan and China.
There is no guarantee that EID will unlock lucrative markets but, with the minister leading a beef trade mission to China in the coming weeks and now armed with EID, sheepmeat access must be high priority.
Farmers are fully behind securing increased market access but their concern is they are bearing the brunt of the cost with no guarantee of increased market returns. This is a view voiced by all farm organisations, who have also criticised the manner in which tagging is being introduced.
Following a meeting with Minister Creed, IFA sheep chair Sean Dennehy said: “Minister Creed accepts that costs are a major issue and that this must be resolved. Minister Creed agreed to fully engage with the IFA on the issue and requested a submission on the matter. The IFA pushed hard on the fact that it should not be necessary to electronically tag lambs moving direct from the farm of origin to slaughter. It is clear from the minister’s announcement that the process has not been fully thought through on the timing and practical implementation at farm, factory and mart level. The Department confirmed that they are not moving to introduce a full sheep database.”
ICSA sheep chair John Brooks said: “This has been done without warning or consultation at the behest of processors. There is no doubt that this move will benefit efficiency in factories but there will be no benefit to the primary producer or to the end consumer. The sheep farmer will ultimately have to bear all the costs associated.”
INHFA described the introduction as a solo run. “This announcement was contrary to what was agreed by the stakeholders’ action group and of little or no benefit to the affected farmers. This move to full EID needs the input of the farmers producing the lambs to advise on the most effective transition to introduce compulsory EID tagging,” INHFA president Colm O’Donnell said, adding that there should be a derogation introduced to allow slaughter tags to be used for store lamb movements to allow existing supplies to be used.
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