Victorian sheep and goat producers are being encouraged to order early with Agriculture Victoria for the new electronic identification tags (eID) that have to be applied to lambs and kids born this year.
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Agriculture Victoria market access and reform director Warren Straw said it expected the introduction of eID in Victoria on January 1, this year would mean little change for the state’s sheep and goat producers.
“They can tag at the normal time of year such as lamb marking time,” he said.
Instead of tagging lambs and kids born this year with visual ID tags, producers have to use elD tags.
Mr Straw said the state government was subsiding the cost of the eID tags so they would cost on average about 35 cents each, similar to the cost of visual ID tags.
Mr Straw said workshops throughout the state last year about the change had attracted strong interest from farmers, with about 1700 farmers attending.
The state government has allocated $17 million to support the introduction of the new system that has been brought in to provide lifetime traceability and underpin biosecurity and market access.
Electronic identification tags have been mandatory in the cattle industry for more than a decade.
Part of the state funding package includes funding for farmers who want to buy scanning machinery such as wands to gain information from the eID tags to help them make better farm management decisions.
Mr Straw said the $750,000 to subsidise scanning machinery for producers would be available on the basis that farmers met half the cost.
He said there had already been applications for the subsidies. The money would only be available for 12 months or until it ran out, Mr Straw said.
Other elements of the $17 million package will help saleyards and abattoirs introduce eID scanning infrastructure. All saleyards, abattoirs and knackeries must commence scanning electronic tags of sheep and goats and uploading the information to the NLIS database from July 1, 2017.
From March 31, next year all electronically tagged sheep and goats moving directly from property to property (including movement within the live export supply chain) must be scanned, with the information uploaded to the National Livestock Identifications System (NLIS) database.
From January, 2019, sheep and goats introduced from interstate and born after January, this year must be electronically tagged before leaving a Victorian property. From January 1, 2022, all sheep and goats regardless of age must be electronically tagged before leaving a property.
