The Government has proposed new options to improve pig and sheep traceability, so it can better respond to disease outbreaks.
While counting sheep may put some to sleep, keeping track of the animals and where they had been could be vitalwhen it came to disease management.
At the moment, when sheep are moved between farms, saleyards and meatworks, farmers are required to fill out animal status declarations or ASDs – on paper or in PDF form.
The Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) has put out a proposal to improve traceability for sheep and pigs.
The three options included staying with the status quo, moving to a fully electronic mob tracing system, or including sheep in NAIT, the National Animal Identification and Tracing System.
Beef + Lamb NZ chairwoman Kate Acland said moving to electronic monitoring was the preferred option.
“Beef + Lamb supports doing it under the ASD system, but moving to fully electronic forms – it’s already in place and relatively low cost compared to the other options, and it’s simple and practical.
“We support improving the traceability in the livestock system, sheep is a gap at the moment – we just need something that is practical and useful on farm.”
Currently, cattle and deer are tracked individually under NAIT, and farmers pay a levy per animal.
Acland said that was not necessary with sheep.
“Bringing sheep under NAIT would be a lengthy process as it would require changes to the legislation and there would be a greater cost for farmers, whereas an ASD is something farmers already use, so it just makes sense to use a system that’s already in place.”
One option the MPI proposal did not include was individually tracking each sheep, as Australia, Canada, the UK and the EU did.
The proposal pointed out that of the 38 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), New Zealand was one of 11 countries that did not individually trace sheep.
“Of these 11 countries, New Zealand stands out as being highly reliant on exports of animal-based primary products.”
MPI said New Zealand could be expected to follow global practice and move towards traceability of individual sheep in the future.
“However, we do not discuss individual traceability as an option because a significant amount of work with stakeholders and providers is needed to understand the costs, benefits and operational resourcing required for this option,” the consultation document said.
Acland said sheep are run in much larger mobs in New Zealand, and the benefits of individual tracing would not outweigh the significant costs this would impose on farmers.
