NSW Farmers vote to back eID national tag rollout

NSW Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders met with his counterparts yesterday to discuss the issue to help close the gaps in national biosecurity.

"Individual traceability for sheep and goats will be critical in the event of an emergency disease outbreak like foot and mouth disease in Australia," Mr Saunders said.

"Recent detections of FMD fragments in Melbourne and Adelaide are a frightening reminder of the need to ramp up our biosecurity controls.

"It's also great to see NSW Farmers throw their weight behind a national eID system for sheep and goats during an emergency vote at their annual conference this week.

Mr Saunders said a national framework will be urgently developed by federal and state agricultural departments with industry input for consideration at the next meeting of agriculture ministers.

Mr Saunders also welcomed an announcement yesterday by the federal government to add sanitiser foot mats at all international airports in Australia, along with confirmation that foot mats will also be rolled out at departure terminals in Indonesia.

NSW Farmers has finally thrown its support behind a national electronic tagging system, but not everyone was convinced.

The farmers' support comes after the state government announced on Tuesday it was backing growing industry calls for the urgent development of a national mandatory sheep and goat electronic identification system in light of the serious threat of foot and mouth disease (FMD) entering Australia.

Jenny Bradley, who is the NSW Farmers sheep meat chair, moved the urgency motion just after Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders spoke about the issues.

Mrs Bradley said it was a hard fought motion they had been working on for a number of years.

"He (Mr Saunders) wants NSW Farmers and needs them to be in the room with him," Mrs Bradley said.

She was backed up Floyd Legge from the Molong branch (vice chair of sheep meat committee) who said the presentation from Mr Saunders indicated he wanted to go forward.

"It would be a disgrace if this conference would not support this motion, it's moving forward, if we vote this down then we have no right to sit at the table to talk about tag tenders," Mr Legge said.

David Young, from Yass, also supported the motion saying the association needed to look to the future.

"How many here still use a fax, how many use mobile phone, we are using technology to move forward," Mr Young said.

"No system is perfect, but we are doing our best to protect the industry...FMD is not the only thing that is out there."

NSW Farmers biosecurity chair Ian McColl said while electronic tagging could be helpful, it would not be a silver bullet for the threat posed by FMD.

"Our members voted to provide in principle support for the development of a national individual traceability system for sheep," Mr McColl said.

"This national system must have jurisdictional harmonisation, be affordable, and be developed in consultation with producers.

"Traceability reforms must ensure that the costs are effectively shared throughout the supply chain and with government."

Mr McColl said in the event of a biosecurity disaster such as an FMD outbreak, effective tracking would enable authorities to enact preventive measures promptly and minimise an outbreak.

"But we must remember this is not something that will replace strong biosecurity controls at our borders, and our members remain concerned about returning travellers and requirements at our airports," he said.

Those against the motion said bureaucrats were using FMD in Indonesia to push their agenda.

There were also concerns from delegates that tags were found in paddocks or on shearing floors.

Peter Carter from the Wellington branch, who was against the motion, said it was the worst composed motion he had see in 35 years.

"It's a grand bag of wish list they have not explained...it will not increase the accuracy or help," Mr Carter said.

Mark Hoskinson from the Kikoira branch, said support for tags in his area were low due to great mobs of sheep.

"There was no case where they had seen the current system had failed," Mr Hoskinson said.

"I adopted the tags last year and got a lot of losses, it was a bad batch, so until they get better tags it will make it difficult for farmers to adopt in the next five years."

Sheep Producers Australia CEO Bonnie Skinner said industry had been calling for a national electronic ID scheme for sheep and it supported the scheme.

"The rapid and reliable tracing of livestock plays a significant part in emergency disease response - the faster animals are traced the greater the chance of controlling the disease outbreak and minimising its economic and social effects," Ms Skinner said.

Australian Meat Industry Council CEO Patrick Hutchinson called for the entire agricultural industry to support a national, individual, electronic-based small stock traceability program to detect and prevent the spread of exotic animal disease.

"To make sure the entire country is prepared for a disease outbreak like FMD we need to act right now to start the process of developing a national eID system for sheep and goats," Mr Hutchinson said.