New EID pilot scheme to be introduced in spring

Cattle: Electronic tagging move announced by Ewing

A new bovine electronic tagging (EID) pilot will be introduced in Scotland in the spring.

The confirmation came yesterday from Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing following representations from the industry.

Last month, the Scottish Bovine EID stakeholder group, which represents almost all parties with an interest in cattle in Scotland, called for a Government-backed pilot to start by the end of 2018.

In a statement issued yesterday to mark the first anniversary of the cattle movement system, ScotMoves, Mr Ewing said: “Through the introduction of the ScotMoves system, we are increasing the resilience and quality of our cattle sector, as a next step a new bovine EID pilot will start in the spring.”

At a briefing in December, the chairman of the stakeholder group, Andrew McCornick, said the industry had worked hard to put forward the case that a pilot for cattle EID in Scotland was needed to ensure that any full introduction was best suited to the needs of Scottish farmers, crofters, marts and abattoirs.

ScotMoves was introduced a year ago to provide transparency on the location of cattle within the country in a bid to control and eradicate diseases.

It is also a way of checking that cattle in Scotland continue to meet the eligibility criteria for BSE Negligible Risk status.

More than 4,000 cattle farmers have now registered to record cattle moves and nearly half a million such movements have been recorded, a landmark figure that was welcomed by Mr Ewing.

“The information on the location of cattle in Scotland contained in the ScotMoves system provides greater reassurance to government and keepers that Scotland is well placed to prevent and control exotic diseases such as foot and mouth and endemic diseases such as bovine virus diarrhoea,” he said.

“This is new information, which increases the providence, quality and resilience of the sector as these keepers are making the effort to record these moves on a system that is easy to use and well designed.”

ScotMoves replaced CTS Links following discussions between industry, government, the EPIC Centre of Expertise and ScotEID.

The tags will look like conventional ones but with an electronic chip.