Mullinahone Co-op has held on to about 95% of farmer orders for cattle tags despite two other companies being approved by the Department of Agriculture to sell tags.

The total number of cattle tags ordered by farmers since new supply arrangements began last November has passed 2.3m.

Mullinahone is understood to have sold 2.15m tag sets, suggesting that total sales to the other two companies, Cormac and Datamars, does not exceed 200,000. The number of tag sets remaining to be ordered before next November is about 100,000.

Mullinahone was helped by the fact that is was approved to start selling its tags from the start of November, weeks before Cormac Tagging.

Datamars did not get approval until the start of 2017. In addition, most livestock farmers already had accounts with Mullinahone.

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