All-electronic tagging for calves on the cards
Scotland could be set to move to an all-electronic tagging system for calves born from January 2020, with all movements and other management actions logged in a central data base via cloud computing.
The tentative timetable – which also points to June 2022 marking the date where all cattle moved off farm will need to carry electronic identity (EID) tags – was revealed recently on the SCOTEID website with the aim of allowing producers to plan ahead for their tag purchase needs.
Farmers wishing to Eidtag their animals earlier than these dates will be able to do so from June 2019, with the new system for recording movements electronically likely to see the end of paper passports.
While the plans produced by the Scottish bovine working group have yet to be finalised and undergo a consultation period, the group said that the phased approach would give sufficient time for existing on-farm stocks of non-eid tags to be run down and for many existing cattle to pass through the supply chain without being retagged.
As yet, a date for re-tagging older breeding cows has not been issued – but it was anticipated that the change to electronic tags together with the development of cloud-based data capture would improve the speed and accuracy of traceability, and was likely to pave the way for removal of paper passports.
A Scottish Government spokesperson this week confirmed that the proposed consultation – due to be rolled out before the end of 2018 – would also include looking at the removal of cattle passports, the phasing in of electronic identifiers and introducing an online holding register.
As well as improvements to the service and reduced paperwork for producers, one of the drivers behind the change is the fact that the UK government plans to pull the plug on the current cattle tracing system CTS Online facility next year.
Defra is presently developing a new Livestock Information Programme to support bovine EID in England and potentially Wales – and Scotland is looking to replace the current service carried out through BCMS by putting the exercise under the remit of SCOTEID.
NFU Scotland livestock policy manager, John Armour said that the industry was broadly in favour of the moves and said that the phased changeover was a sensible course.
He said that while the change to sheep EID had been the source of much consternation in the industry, most thought that cattle were more suited to an EID system – and many producers could also see advantages from a recording and management point of view.