A PROPOSAL by the Irish Co-operative Marts to have all sheep in the State electronically tagged (EID) except those going directly from farm for slaughter has been rejected by the Irish Farmers’ Association.
Michael Spellman, chairman of the ICOS national marts committee, had called for the tags, which would give Irish sheep producers a method of differentiating its meat to consumers.
“The ICOS marts committee would like to see the full introduction of EID for all sheep movements while continuing to implement the slaughter derogation for all lambs under 12 months of age - where these lambs are moving directly to slaughter from the farm of origin to the market factory,” he said.
“ We need to be aware of trends among domestic producers and exporters in our target markets where we are noticing a fuller adoption of the EID standard. It is also the case that Northern Ireland has full sheep EID which creates an anomaly between the two jurisdictions,” he said.
But IFA national sheep committee chairman James Murphy said the move would undermine the association’s work at national and EU level to find a practical solution for farmers and the sheep industry to the difficulties associated with compulsory EID.
He said the IFA would continue to work to find an acceptable solution in the best interests of farmers and had always argued the mart trade could not be placed at a competitive disadvantage on sheep identification. He insisted that lambs could be sold in the marts with an ordinary mart tag, which was currently the case.
“IFA recently put forward proposals from the sheep sector which would allow finishers to continue to re-tag lambs with a single EID tag,” said Mr Murphy.
He said the association had highlighted animal welfare problems and infected ears in sheep with tagging and EID.