It is widely accepted that there is a need for traceability of sheep movement. Tagging is an essential part of this process. However, the undue haste of the final introduction will inevitably lead to flaws in the scheme.
The introduction of a national sheep identification system without research, without trial, and without the establishment of standards is a major blunder by the Minister and his officials. It is fully accepted that identification and traceability is necessary for orderly marketing of sheep in order to comply with EU regulations and respond to consumer demands. However, to introduce a scheme that is not workable or practicable is to embark on a costly failure, and the cost will inevitably have to be borne by the producer who is already under severe pressure to make a sheep farming enterprise viable.
The purpose of this scheme is to provide traceability, not control, for which some officials in the Department want it used. The proposed scheme will wipe out the store lamb producers in Counties Galway, Mayo and Roscommon where most of the store lambs here are produced. If a farmer takes lambs to a mart for sale, it is practical to have one permanent tag and a card. A scheme whereby it will be necessary to have triplicate documentation to accompany each – one to be retained for registration, the second to be retained by the mart and the third by the buyer – will be unworkable. Before the sheep leave the mart a new tag must be put on, and these details must be recorded once more on a register. It will be necessary for the buyer to decide on a pre-determined number of tags for his purchases. In an age of technology, the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development is promoting a cumbersome, labour intensive and outmoded model based on documentation and a paper mountain. The problem is not one of tagging but of the type of system being introduced with it. If it flounders, as it will in its present form, we will have to change it.
In its first week, it has already led to serious confusion among the farming community. The simple obvious difficulties on the ground seem as usual to have escaped the gurus in the Department whose task it was to devise and implement a workable system. We should look at the French model where there were consultations and discussions at local and regional meetings and the legal requirements of the tags were brought in before final implementation of the scheme. It took two years to devise an effective and efficient system. That should be our model. We require a single tag identifying the country of origin, the flock number and the individual number with one single passport card for life similar to the French model which recognises the age of technology rather than the cumbersome paper trail proposed for farmers by the Minister.
What is of great concern to most farmers is that no research has been done on the system we are introducing. We have, for example, several suppliers of tags, none of which have been tried and tested. There is no consistency in design or production. Because of the lack of standardisation in design, we are bound to have losses. We are told by Mr. Frank Crosbie, chairman of the sheep production group, that we will have a 5% loss on average. What cumbersome mode of presentation will we have to replace them?
It is important that this scheme is a success for all from the start. It is necessary, therefore, to introduce tagging on a pilot basis – one for an upland area and another for a lowland area – to test the products and to eliminate the teething problems which will inevitably occur. This should be promoted and supervised by the Department in consultation with the producers. I suggest, therefore, that before we get too deeply into it that the present scheme is reviewed as a matter of urgency so that it can be successful rather than allow teething troubles to cause frustration and disaster in the process.
