Alyn Smith MEP, member of the European Parliament’s Agriculture and Rural Development Committee, yesterday submitted amendments to the new Animal Health Law.
These are designed to alleviate practical difficulties for farmers in the implementation of requirements to electronically tag sheep.
The amendments are intended to relieve sheep farmers of the need to double tag sheep with both an electronic tag and an individual identification number until the sheep leaves the farm of birth.
Instead, sheep farmers can identify their sheep with a single, non-electronic tag, with identification for the holding of birth rather than an individual identification number.
These are the rules in place for sheep slaughtered before 12 months and not intended for intra-EU trade. Once the animal leaves the farm of birth, normal rules on tagging will apply.
Industry organisations have called for this derogation for some time, due to the significant impact it will have on read rates, animal welfare through less ear damage for sheep and reduced costs for farmers, while not compromising the essential elements of traceability and disease control.
Industry monitoring and recording body Scot EID estimates read rates decrease by three per cent every 600 days. Limited inspection resources could, as a result, focus on the key risk point in disease control, which is the movement of animals.
The amendments will also help relieve the burden of cross compliance penalties, suggested Mr Smith.
He said: “This has been a long-running saga and we’ve not had much luck in convincing the commission to introduce this critical derogation through administrative means, so I’m determined to take the opportunity that the Animal Health Law provides to reintroduce this proposal on the field of legislation.
“We are still of the opinion that this law is simply disproportionate to the purpose of disease prevention and control.”