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Following a government decision to implement compulsory EID tagging for all sheep sold from 1 October, the sheep sector has seen much debate over the pros and cons of the move.
This continued at Sheep 2018 where the Irish Farmers Journal chaired an industry debate in which John Walsh, general manager at Irish Country Meats, and Declan Fennell, sector manager at Bord Bia, participated.
An opportunity to improve our system of tractability and to make us competitive
Declan Fennell emphasised the improvements EID could bring to the marketability of Irish product abroad. “As an opportunity to improve our system of tractability and to make us competitive with some of our competitors that are already in that space, EID can only be a good thing.”
John Walsh also echoed that pointn saying: “A customer will come in and say ‘the product I got on the 14 March, I want to know the first middle and last farmer in the batch that went in and I want full traceability on it’”.
Cost concerns
However, farmers in the audience expressed concerns over the fact they would shoulder the brunt of the cost while it would be processors who would see the biggest benefit.
John said there was a misconception that EID would be a major saving for processors but in reality it would only replace one man and one job.
Declan said that EID had almost become an industry standard and that in future efforts to open markets, such as the US, EID might not be a deal breaker but it would be a significant part.
He said: “The other thing we should look at is the benefit EID has brought in production systems. It captures a huge amount of data on farms where they have EID in place and it has provided very tangible measures and tools to improve flock health.”
John concluded by saying it was the ambition of the processors to give farmers back the best price that they possible could. “Our interest is in a 52-week supply at a sustainable price. 2018 has delivered significant improvements in livestock prices back to the farmer. Would EID help that? I don’t know but I hope so.”
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