IFA dairy committee proposing digitisation of blue cards

The IFA dairy committee has proposed that cattle passports, commonly known as ‘blue cards’, should be abolished.

Furthermore, the whole system should switch to a digital-only system, he said.

Speaking at the Wexford IFA dairy meeting, IFA dairy chair Martin McElearney said the committee drew up this proposal on the back of delays in delivering the cards to farmers over recent years. Those delays can, in turn, lead to delays in selling calves.

He also highlighted that a card containing the wrong animal description – for example the breed, age or sex are incorrect – can also become a barrier to selling.

Cost

It costs the Department of Agriculture €3.8m to issue and post the blue cards each year, the meeting heard.

“The physical blue card in the hand is actually no longer essential because we have the EID tag in the calf’s ear to identify the calf and, through genotyping, everyone knows what the calf is,” McElearney said in explaining the proposal.

He described blue cards as “just a piece of paper” because possessing one does not mean a farmer owns the animal.