Western Australia and South Australia have confirmed their support for a national sheep and goat electronic identification (eID) system.
In fact so much so that SA is the first state to announce it has provided funding to investigate the benefits of the system.
SA has committed $140,000 in funding to Livestock SA to assist in the development of a business case to evaluate the benefits, costs and risk of implementing a sheep traceability system.
The funding was committed on July 12 prior to the nation's agriculture minister's meeting about the issue on July 20.
More reading: Western goats should remain tag free
SA primary industries Minister Clare Scriven said there was an in-principle agreement to advance work on a national approach to Australia's livestock traceability systems that was practical to implement, industry led and cost efficient.
WA Agriculture and Food Minister Alannah MacTiernan said there had been division among the WA industry over this issue for many years, but now was the time to move on electronic sheep tagging.
Ms MacTiernan said there had been extensive work done on the infrastructure requirements, technical aspects and industry support to inform how it could be implemented efficiently to expedite and improve livestock traceability to support biosecurity defences.
"We have asked the Commonwealth to bring forward a cost analysis and cost sharing plan, getting that funding mix is going to be critical," Ms MacTiernan said.
The next agriculture minister's meeting was expected to be held tomorrow but instead has been pushed back until September.
Meanwhile NSW Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders will be hosting a Biosecurity Conference in Dubbo on August 22.
