Tagging is top of the agenda at NSA event

3:53pm Thursday 14th August 2008

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Despite some current and impending problems facing sheep farmers, there was a real buzz around the crowd and trade stands at the bi-annual NSA Sheep Event, when more than 10,000 visited the one-day show at the Three Counties Showground. Such a large attendance proves how popular specialist shows have become.

But sheep farmers are worried – about rising costs eroding incomes just as there was an upturn in sheep prices – about Bluetongue, which has been spreading rapidly across France, with more than 5,000 new cases having been reported by early August.

They are also worried about the increasing level of bureaucracy and the impact it is having on their farming.

But perhaps the most contentious worry is the threat of compulsory electronic tagging of sheep.

National Sheep Association chairman Jonathon Barker mentioned compulsory electronic tagging when introducing Jim Paice, the shadow agricultural spokesman in the House of Commons, who raised the serious impact it would have on the sheep industry.

NSA president Lord Henry Plumb explained some of the background issues which surround EID.

Lord Plumb said it was a piece of legislation which was enacted when it was thought there was a risk of sheep carcases carrying CJD into the food chain. But that risk has since been rejected.

But as he explained, it was almost impossible to rescind EU legislation once it had become law. He thought that was at the root of the problem as he said there was no justification for compulsory EID, adding something needed to be done in Brussels to enable legislation which was no longer appropriate to be scrapped or amended.

Julian Salmon, the CLA’s Welsh director, expressed sheep farmers’ anger at the imposition of compulsory tagging at the Royal Welsh Show, when he described it as “an unaffordable imposition and a nonsense which needed to be explained to politicians.

Mr Salmon added: “it was time to put a line in the sand to stop it.”

But at the NSA event, Meurig Raymond, the NFU deputy president, explained that despite pressure from various organisations and from Hilary Benn, who was not in favour of EID, the legislation was in place, and although there was a possibility that it could be amended some time in the future, there was little hope that anything could be done quickly.

He thought that the best line of action was for the government to apply for a further delay in the implementation of EID as the rules had not been agreed in detail and to try to get some concessions to make the system more cost effective and more user friendly.

Richard Webber, of Shearwell Data, which supplies electronic EID equipment, told farmers that EID, as well as meeting the legislation, was a good management tool as sheep could be individually recorded and could be linked to assurance schemes.

He admitted the essential feed-back data from the abattoirs would not be available to producers.

One farmer queried what would happen if all farmers refused to comply. A livestock adviser to the Welsh Assembly Government warned that if farmers did not meet their obligations, it would jeopardise their Single Farm Payment.