This morning, the Victorian Government announced that from mid-2017, all saleyards, abattoirs and knackeries will be required to scan electronic tags of sheep and goats and upload the information to the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) database.

This follows the unanimous recommendation of the Victorian Sheep and Goat Identification Advisory Committee and the Victorian Auditor General’s Biosecurity-Livestock Report.

Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford announced a four-week consultation period on both the transition package and draft implementation standards to ensure the smooth introduction of the eID system.

Funding to support the transition will be provided  based on feedback received and will focus on the phased adoption of eID technology across the supply chain.

Agriculture Victoria will take feedback on the draft standards and transition package to assist with the implementation.

While the current national approach is a mob-based visual tag system, individual electronic tags offer greater traceability, productivity improvement and information for key  international trading partners.

eID tags have been mandatory in the cattle industry for more than a decade. In addition to the traceability benefits during a disease outbreak or food safety emergency, the storage of individual animal data provides opportunities for producers to further improve their production systems.

Agriculture Victoria currently retails the cheapest electronic NLIS tags in Australia thanks to a competitive tendering process and increased demand for the tags is likely to deliver even cheaper products to support producers adopting the technology.

Ms Pulford said: “Embracing identification technology will help safeguard our access to lucrative export markets and provide opportunities to continue upward productivity gains.”

“The Andrews Labor Government will not leave the industry to absorb these system changes alone – we’ll work with the sector across the supply chain to aid the introduction of identification tags and scanning technology.”

The Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) Livestock Group issued a statement that it is determined to negotiate the best outcome for livestock producers following the State Government’s decision to introduce mandatory electronic identification (eID) tags in sheep and goats.

“We will be working hard to ensure farmers and other stakeholders will not face additional cost by this decision of government to mandate electronic tags in sheep and goats,” VFF Livestock President Leonard Vallance said.

“Livestock producers need a guarantee that they won’t be disadvantaged by the cost of fitting electronic tags to their stock.

“The State Government has offered to invest in eIDs for the first year, but this investment by government needs to be guaranteed for the long term.

“The State Government’s tag tender system is a well proven method of sustaining low cost tags as is evident in the cattle industry.

“Governments – State and Federal – need to remember they have a community obligation to contribute to the cost of traceability when it comes to major livestock disease outbreaks that affect everyone – not just farmers.”

Mr Vallance said the VFF still believed the most effective way of implementing electronic tags was to have a consistent approach that was affordable to farmers and well supported by industry.

“But as it stands, we are determined to negotiate the best possible outcome for livestock producers to guarantee there’s no impact on livestock operations across Victoria due to the Government’s initiative.”

“We will make it clear to government that the cost of post farm gate eID infrastructure must not be imposed on farmers.”