If a truck load of vendor-bred sheep go direct from a farm to an abattoir, should producers pay for the time, effort and cost of each animal having a $2.50 electronic identification (eID) ear tag?

South East prime lamb producer and SA Electronic Identification Sheep and Goat Traceability Steering Committee member Duan Williams says “No”, those loads should be exempt.

He believes “there is no economic benefit to the producer”, just a massive cost and an increased workload.

Current figures suggest around $30 million will be ripped out of rural communities and their service towns by the scheme.

The committee agreed in December that by January 1, 2025, it will be mandatory in SA for all sheep and goats to have eID tags.

Mr Williams is scathing and says his calls for data, evidence and statistics as well as appeals to investigate an exemption have all been continuously ignored by the steering committee which was formed last July by Livestock SA.

He believes rather than a starting point of “why should we do this?”, the debate has started with “the government says we have to do this, so we must do it”.

Mr Williams felt so incensed about being ignored by the committee, of which he is the only sheep producer, he recently organised a meeting at Lucindale.

Three days after making 12 phone calls, 54 people rolled into the Lucindale Bowling Club.

A further 32 producers unable to attend sent messages of support to Mr Williams, who welcomed the crowd and invited farm lobby group Livestock SA CEO Travis Tobin to explain the situation.

Although not on the steering committee, Mr Tobin said the state and federal government ministers have already agreed to a national system for mandatory eID tags for sheep and goats by January 1, 2025.

For an exemption in SA, Mr Tobin said the other states would need to reverse what they have already agreed to.

Mr Tobin had 40 handouts and asked the crowd to share them.

They included dates and information for mandatory sheep and goat traceability, which first sparked in 2002 – in response to a foot and mouth disease (FMD) outbreak in the U.K.

There had been various trials, debates, studies and reports since, culminating in what was known as Sheep Catcher II in 2016.

It featured Australia’s mob based visual tag system for sheep and goats.

Mr Tobin referred to disease outbreaks in Indonesia last year – Lumpy Skin disease in March followed by FMD in May.

That led to three meetings of state and federal agriculture ministers who all agreed on the January 1, 2025 date for mandatory eID tags.

Prior to the ministers’ meetings, Mr Tobin said the process for a steering committee had already started and “at the end of the day governments will make a decision on behalf of industry”.

He believed farmers were best placed to receive funding to assist with costs if a “robust business case” was developed.

Mr Tobin said meat processors TFI and JBS would no longer purchase stock without eID tags once the January 1, 2025 and 2027 deadlines were reached.

TFI also has a representative on the steering committee.

Some farmers believed only the abattoirs would benefit from eID tags, but expected producers to pay and do all the work.

Compliance problems with the NLIS database for cattle – a system introduced 20 years ago – were repeatedly raised as flawed by several speakers.

Mr Tobin said the government was spending $26.7m on upgrading the system.

Another producer suggested simplifying the system with an exemption for vendor-bred stock going straight to slaughter, and asked Mr Tobin what the community feedback to that was?

Mr Tobin argued an exemption would complicate the system, and not simplify it.

Lochaber farmer Cameron Grundy also highlighted problems with the data systems, yet farmers were to be charged “tens of thousands of dollars.”

Mr Grundy suggested Livestock SA seek full cost recovery for the eID tags.

Mr Grundy also challenged Mr Tobin that “rather than telling us why we can’t do it … you should be taking it back to Livestock SA and these government departments and saying we’ve got a practical solution here – we’ve got a primary producer who can save $20,000 or $30,000 by sending vendor bred lambs direct to slaughter.”

Mr Tobin said he understood but “at the end of the day the government makes laws, the industry doesn’t”.

Tantanoola farmer Peter Altschwager said with 11 million sheep in SA and each tag costing $2.50, the scheme would cost producers $30 million – but producers could only expect $6 million in funding and “still had to do all the work”.

Woolumbool farmer Patrick Ross suggested Mr Tobin was putting the cart before the horse by hoping the electronic data was going to meet expectations, rather than having it already in place.

Mr Tobin said there wasn’t a choice – “it’s happening”.

Mr Ross also reflected on Mr Tobin’s earlier comments – that Australia exports and should something go wrong, it was Australia’s reputational damage.

Mr Ross said the cost was therefore “Australia’s cost, not a producer cost”.

Mr Tobin said he agreed and highlighted funding being made available so far.

In a prepared statement Duan Williams detailed the specified role of the 12 member steering committee, and how he was ignored as the only sheep producer trying to represent fellow producers. Yet producers were set to face all the costs and extra workload.

Former SA Farmers Federation sheep meat council member Julie Lloyd highlighted the work of 20 years ago, in favour of eID tags and urged farmers to support it.

Conmurra’s Elke Hocking said “at the end of the day we could spend a lot of effort trying to get an exemption that market forces will just completely squash”.

Former Member for MacKillop Mitch Williams said “we have been railroaded into a system which we have had for years in the cattle industry, and we know it’s not working”.

He challenged Mr Tobin’s claims regarding ministerial decisions and eID tags as “just going to happen”.

“I know a little bit about politics,” said Mr Williams who explained just because ministers said something, did not mean it got through the parliament, and the federal parliament “did not have jurisdiction over this”.

Duan Williams asked if there was any appetite for an exemption and more than 15 people put up their hands.

This article appeared in the Naracoorte Community News.