Sheep eID rollout controversy

After threats by NSW Farmers to pull out of the national electronic identification system for sheep and goats, harmonisation is a step closer.

New draft National Livestock Identification Scheme Standards for sheep and goats are a step closer to being agreed upon by all jurisdictions.

It comes as NSW Farmers threatened last week to walk away from the national rollout of mandatory sheep electronic identification, just a month after WoolProducers Australia pulled its support for the program.

The SAFEMEAT advisory group met on Tuesday this week to try to achieve “harmonisation” for the national rollout of electronic identification for sheep and goats.

The advisory group agreed there were a small number of outstanding matters to be resolved, however the group reached an agreement to initiate a facilitated process to finalise the draft standards.

This process aims to achieve unanimous agreement from all stakeholders with a deadline for final endorsement by the July 2024 SAFEMEAT meeting.

WoolProducers chief executive Jo Hall said “the decision by the advisory group to try and find a way forward in achieving national harmonisation vindicates WoolProducers’ position regarding our concerns about the piecemeal approach being taken by jurisdictions with the rollout of EIDs for sheep including the draft standards”.

“If this process delivers on its aim of unanimous agreement from relevant stakeholders to achieve nationally consistent minimum traceability standards, WoolProducers will be one step closer to recommitting to supporting the roll-out of EIDs, however it is too early to commit to anything yet,” Ms Hall said.

“Jurisdictional harmonisation” is one of the key principles of the national system.

NSW Farmers president Xavier Martin said eID for sheep and goats was “supposed to be about improving Australia’s biosecurity systems, but unless there is jurisdictional harmonisation and consistent compliance, we cannot support the adoption” of a national system.

“This is a critical issue for sheep and goat producers, one we have spent a considerable amount of time working on, and now we may have no choice but to walk away,” Mr Martin said.

“The clue is in the title – this is supposed to be a national scheme – but there is a real risk with each state and territory moving in its own direction.”

Despite this stance from NSW Farmers, a Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry spokeswoman said Australian agriculture ministers were committed to the implementation of the national reform, reaffirmed at the most recent Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting on October 6, 2023.

“Implementation is progressing consistent with state and territory government timelines,” she said.

NSW Farmers is threatening to pull out of supporting the national rollout of electronic identification for sheep and goats.

Sheep Producers Australia chair Andrew Spencer said their position remained unchanged in support of broad whole-of-system reform.

Mr Spencer said when the 2020 SAFEMEAT NLIS reform recommendations weren’t adopted in full, they “knew that nationally harmonised implementation of eID was going to be challenging, but is still necessary”.

“This was further reinforced when jurisdictions agreed differing timelines and approaches to the roll out of eID. This is regrettable; however, we must continue to work within that environment to achieve the best outcomes for producers,” Mr Spencer said.

“The biosecurity threats facing Australia remain unchanged and the consequences of failing to strengthen our traceability system are unacceptable.”

There has still been no offer from the NSW or Queensland governments to subsidise eID tags, which currently cost about $2 each.

South Australia is moving ahead with implementation and tag subsidies.

South Australian Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development Clare Scriven said steps towards the establishment of a mandatory sheep and goat eID system in South Australia were progressing well.

“The implementation of the South Australian eID system is one of the most generous programs in the nation and has two major components: subsidies for producer tag purchases (50 per cent up to a cap of 95c per tag), and 75 per cent subsidies for the purchase and installation of essential eID equipment and infrastructure at processing facilities and saleyards,” she said.

Victoria was the first state to adopt eID for sheep seven years ago, and has used producers’ sheep stamp duty payments to subsidise tags, cutting the cost to 83 cents each.