Auctioneers urge use of cattle EID system

Alistair Sneddon, chairman of the Livestock Auctioneers Association said the EID in cattle could bring real benefits to the industry at large, saying that foreign competitors are already using the technology to exploit parentage and performance data.

The organisation is one of a number of groups currently advising Defra on the matter as it prepares to make a decision.

A small proportion of British cattle farmers already use EID for management purposes and enthusiasts want to use it instead of the current paper passport system.

Mr Sneddon said: "We believe bovine EID could offer real benefits to the industry here, particularly if combined with enhancements to the system to improve the speed and utility of information between the British Cattle Movement Service and end-users.

"It could also be used by producers as a management tool for milk recording and feeding, as well as capturing breeding data, health status and carcass weight and grading.

"However, we recognise that there needs to be buy-in from all sectors, with universal uptake after a relatively short lead period of between two and three years, if all the advantages and efficiencies are to be realised. We hope they will be persuaded."

However the call comes in the same week that sheep tagging businesses reported that nearly half of all its orders in January were for the old-fashioned kind of eartags, which are still permitted on sheep going from birth farm to slaughter at under a year old, rather than the modern EID tags.

A basic EID tag costing another 50p would make it easier to record the sheep if they go through a market and would make sense for any farmer planning to take advantage of the opportunities in EID, as urged by the government, rather than simply doing the bare minimum required to comply with the law.

The chief executive of the Livestock Auctioneers Association, Chris Dodds, said when he heard of the figures: "If farmers don't use electronic tags, it will restrict the number of people who are prepared to buy their sheep."

The National Farmers' Union is reminding sheep farmers across the region that new Electronic Identification (EID) rules apply to all sheep born or identified after December 31, 2009 and that as a result, it is not possible to use up stocks of existing slaughter tags from previous years on lambs going to slaughter in 2010.

The reason, says NFU senior food and farming adviser, Louise White, is that old tags are printed with individual identification numbers.

"There are several options available to sheep keepers when it comes to choosing which tags to use and it's important to talk to buyers, markets and abattoirs to ensure the most appropriate ones are selected," she said.