Farmers await outcome of crunch EID meeting in Europe

EU agriculture Ministers were set to discuss a proposal yesterday which would amend the regulations, allowing individual tagging to be deferred until the sheep leave the holding of birth.

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The paper, devised by the Scottish Government and submitted by the UK to other member states will need to gain support from other member states if it is to be successful.

The meeting marked the second time the EU Agriculture Council had discussed the regulations, after member states rejected calls to make the rules voluntary at a similar meeting earlier this year.

Since then representatives from the UK sheep industry have attempted to gather more support from across Europe and with farmers staging a mass protest outside the meeting in Luxembourg, there is hope Ministers could finally accept the argument.

Speaking from Luxembourg, NFU Scotland vice-president Allan Bowie said: “NFUS and other stakeholders around the country have been waging a non-stop campaign aimed at getting the EU and most other Member States to wake up to the dangers in these proposals.

“The number of farming groups around Europe that are now lobbying their own ministers on this subject has grown month by month and support for change throughout Europe is growing.

“We are only six months away from this regulation being implemented and we desperately need a common sense approach that will allow Scottish farmers to meet acceptable demands on traceability of their sheep.

“Without that, the bureaucracy and cost generated by the regulation will see the shrinkage in Scotland’s sheep flock accelerate.”

For more news from the meeting in Luxembourg throughout the day, keep checking farmersguardian.com