News

7th December 2011

UK secures major sheep EID victory in Brussels

DEFRA has won a key victory on sheep EID in Brussels that has delayed a requirement for individual movement recording of the ‘historic flock’ for three years.

The victory could potentially saving the industry up to £11.5 million, according to the NFU.

The requirement for individually recording movements of animals born before December 31, 2009, known as the historic flock, was due to come into force on January 1, 2012, just over three weeks from now. This would have led to many farmers choosing to electronically tag these sheep next year.

But, days before the requirement was due to come into force, a UK proposal to delay the requirement until the end of 2014 has been accepted.

The European Commission’s Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health (SCoFCAH) narrowly voted in favour of the derogation at a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.

Farming Minister Jim Paice said: “In this economic climate it is not affordable or practical to electronically tag the millions of sheep born before electronic sheep identification was introduced.

“I have been pressing Europe hard to defer the impending individual movement reporting requirement for these older sheep. I am pleased they have listened to us and farmers by delaying this requirement for three years.”

NFU chief livestock adviser Peter Garbutt described the vote as a ‘victory for common sense’.

He said farmers would have had to meet the individual movement requirement by either manually reading existing eartags or replacing existing tags with new electronic ones. He said most farmers, particularly those with larger flocks, would probably have gone down the electronic EID route.

He said the three-year delay, by which time the numbers of pre-December 31, 2009 animals in the breeding flock will be much lower. It will save the UK sheep industry between £4m and 11.5m, depending on how farmers met the regulation, according to NFU estimates.

“It went down to the wire. The presentation focussed on the extra costs of complying for virtually zero traceability benefit because Defra are still interested mainly in batch information,” he said.

All sheep born after December 31, 2009, and retained for further breeding still need to be individually electronically identified.