We don’t need no EID sheep tags

The Editor,

There are increasing movements from government to introduce mandatory electronic sheep tags in NSW. These tags would replace the current sheep tags and move traceability from a mobbased system to an individualised system. Having an electronic tracing system like this may sound good in theory, but at the end of the day it is a cost to industry that provides little overall benefit.

The cost to producers and the supply chain is complicated. To start off the tags themselves cost about $2 each. Other costs include; cost to put in the tag, the cost of keeping the database up to date, cost of scanning at saleyards, cost of replacement tags at saleyards, cost of scanning at abattoirs.

It would be easy to get to a cost of $5 a head when you start considering all these factors. That’s 5 per cent of the sale price of an animal being sold for $100 and a staggering 10 per cent on a $50 animal, let alone when you get to the stage of the tagging system becoming worth more than what a producer can sell an animal for.

Many people are all too aware of times in history when sheep have been worth nothing.

This is in stark contrast to the EID mandate on cattle. While I still don’t agree with it being mandated, the cost as a percentage of the animal’s worth is far less.

There is a massive problem that is often overlooked regarding government-imposed regulation such as this. If you take a sheep producer with 5000 sheep, that is a mandated cost to them of $25,000. What else could that producer have spent that money on.

As business owners we are always making decisions about where to invest money. That $25,000 may have been far better off being spent on fencing, grain and hay storage for the next drought, improved water access or maybe that money is even better spent on the war against feral animals that can spread disease.

It is often stated that electronic sheep tags are a fantastic tool for producers to help manage their enterprises. While this may be true, the vast majority of producers clearly don’t see it as adding enough value to adopt it in their business. The current uptake of electronic sheep tags in the industry is minimal. It is mainly used by studs in higher value markets.

Farming is an extremely competitive and tough industry with business owners always looking for ways to improve performance and productivity. If electronic sheep tags were a good investment on these grounds, you would see a far greater uptake of the technology.

The main reason that is used when arguing for the mandating of EID tags is biosecurity. At surface level this would appear to be a hard one to argue against, however, would it really make that much of a difference if there was a disease outbreak? It’s not like we don’t have any traceability at present.

We currently have sheep tags and a mob-based tracing system that has worked. If there was an FMD outbreak in Australia, how would we be better off with EIDS? I have never heard of a pinpointed example of this, only ever generalised statements that we would be better off.

There are millions of feral animals capable of spreading disease, none of them will be tagged or traced. If an outbreak happened, would it just be individual animals destroyed? Or would entire areas be locked down? Is it that hard to trace animal movements from infected zones now?

At present, the system is touted at only being used for traceability. One must wonder though what other information will be required to be stored on the tag going forward?

There are already calls within industry for carbon footprint information to be declared on vendor declarations. Ian Mcconnel from Tysons Foods was touting this recently in a presentation at the Ekka.

Data ownership is also a great concern in modern agriculture. How else would the information on the database be used? And by whom? And to what end? These questions need to be asked and answered.

Feedback from processors that markets are requiring full paddock to plate traceability is no reason for a government mandate of the use of eids. Quite simply, the free market should determine this.

If markets do indeed require this level of traceability, then processors are more than welcome to make the decision to only buy livestock that has these systems in place. That would create market forces in the sale yards that individual farmers would then react to according to their own circumstances.

The rate at which government regulation is being applied to private business is accelerating. At what point do we lose free market principles and become totally government controlled?

I would argue we are rapidly approaching that outcome.

With every mandated regulation we are one step closer to losing the values that have made us great and created the wealth in this country. That is why it is imperative to err on the side of caution when imposing regulation on an industry.

The case should at the very least be overwhelming before it is even considered.

This, in itself, is made redundant in that if the case is overwhelming, then the vast majority of people will enact it anyway. Peter Rothwell, Liberal Democrats, Mendooran