STOCK agent and farmer leaders believe there needs to be national agreement on an electronic identification system for sheep, before states introduce their own programs.
Australian Livestock and Property Agents Association chief executive officer Andy Madigan said ALPA believed for any National Livestock Identification System to be effective “it must be nationally consistent with national implementation, not a phased in system at the states discretion as it is now.”
Mr Madigan said the $1 million in funding for Victorian saleyards would highlight if reading of electronic tags in sheep was feasible at commercial speeds, but he said the costs of establishing electronic sheep systems in saleyards would be substantial, “so funding will have to come from somewhere”.
“It is pointless the saleyards having a set-up without all the abattoirs having a set-up.”
Mr Madigan said the current visual tag system was failing because producers were not tagging their sheep or filling out the National Vendor Declaration form correctly.
“I don’t believe for a minute that putting an RFID tag in their ear is going to be the silver bullet, because if producers are not doing property-to-property transfers… it still hasn’t fixed the problem.”
Sheepmeat Council of Australia president Kate Joseph said movement towards electronic tagging of sheep must be rolled out nationally with the same tag price.
“You can’t have on state going out on its own, because all it does is create problems trading across state boundaries.
“We’re a national industry and we need our identification system to be a national system.”
She rejected suggestions that SCA was responsible for a lack of federal government support for a national electronic tagging system for sheep.
“The Sheepmeat Council’s position is that we have a visual system that works and we support voluntary RFID.
“We’ve never even seen a whimper of an opportunity to apply for federal funding,’ she said.
“We have states around our table who say we don’t want it (electronic sheep tagging) in our state.”
Ms Joseph said the $1 million saleyards funding was “moving towards looking at a system as a system that may work”.
She said there were issues common to visual tag and electronic systems that need to be resolved such as sheep without tags, incorrect tagging and incomplete transfers.
“If it is not going to work for this (visual tag system) why is it going to work for a more expensive system?”
Mike Stephens and Associates consultant and sheep producer Charlie de Fegely supported the $1 million outlay in Victoria to do sheep saleyard electronic tag reading plans.
“Whether we like it or not the electronic tags are coming and anything we can do to improve the system, needs to be done.”
But he did not believe electronic tagging would be adopted by most flock owners until there were financial benefits.
“My fears are that the benefits will probably be market access for the first period of time.”
Producers need to see a pathway showing that use of electronic tags give better returns or productivity, rather than doing it as “the right thing for the industry”, he said.
The 90 cent electronic tag was “in the ballpark” for producers, and less than other RFID tags priced up to $2.50, but still not comparable to visual tag prices and not enough on its own to boost producer uptake, Mr de Fegely said.
Many producers were rebuilding flocks after drought and did not have the capacity or scope to be highly selective, but electronic tags should be considered for studs or flock measurement situations. Mr de Fegely said the cost of RFID equipment has been a drawback and MSA was trying through its work with Victoria DPI, to establish a low input entry point into electronic tagging for sheep producers.
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