Electronic Identification will ensure differentiation, competitiveness and consumer appeal.

Wednesday 13^th July 2016 – Calling for the full nationwide introduction of EID (Electronic Identification) for sheep, ICOS Marts Committee Chairman, Michael Spellman said, “Establishing EID for the entire national flock would create opportunities for Ireland to differentiate the quality and traceability of our sheep meat products on international markets.” He was speaking at a meeting between ICOS and the European Association of Livestock Marts (AEMB) at Ciney in Belgium.

The ICOS Marts Committee wants the full introduction of EID to be made for all sheep movements. This would mean all sheep being EID tagged on leaving their holdings of origin, with at least 1 EID tag.

ICOS marts are willing to provide full Critical Control Point designation in order to provide farmers with a full EID tag reading service which can be used as part of their herd register. This service will greatly ease the burden of sheep EID for farmers and marts alike.

“EID will present marketing advantages which the Irish sheep meat sector needs to embrace,” said Michael Spellman.

“Ireland has already adopted a one tag for life approach for movement traceability.   The adoption of full EID will enhance flock management where it will allow for more efficient animal recording and more streamlined sale and movement between farms, marts and processors.

“More importantly, it will ensure differentiation, competitiveness and consumer appeal for our sheep meat exports on international markets where traceability and quality must be continually assured.

“On a practical farmer level, the issue which is of real concern to the livestock marts is that purchasers of store lambs now have a real administrative burden that was not there in the past. This is an unworkable situation for some farmers who are purchasing hundreds, perhaps thousands of store lambs, as manually recording a 12-digit individual code when buying and selling these animals is totally impractical and prone to error.

“We have heard first hand from Northern Ireland, France and Belgium the practical benefits for farmers of adopting EID and the feedback from their farmers are they would not return to the old paper based system.

“The Irish sheep meat industry must demonstrate the uniqueness of our meat offer.  Full EID will signal further that our supply chain assurance systems are unrivalled in the marketplace.  ICOS is calling on the industry and the Department of Agriculture to embrace full EID within the sheep sector,”