Trial shows EID scheme 'unworkable' and ‘inefficient’

Findings from the trial were presented to a meeting in Brussels by Dutch farming organisations yesterday (Monday, November 10).

The trial looked into the costs involved in implementing EID. While a conventional tag would cost 60 cents an EID tag would cost 2.40 euros.

This coupled with the costs of readers and the extra cost of putting the individual sheep onto the central database means EID would cost the farmer an additional 6.62 euros per sheep per year.

Alyn Smith, Scotland’s member of the European Parliament’s Agricultural Committee, said these costs would ‘be enough to turn our already dreadful destocking trickle into a torrent’.

Mr Smith said he would use data from Scottish and Welsh trials to demonstrate the EID should be made voluntary.

“In the current obligatory form it will provoke an exodus from Scotland’s hills at a time when we need to do all we can to support local food production,”

Mr Smith also said he was glad to hear German farming organisations were ‘waking up to this as an issue’ and were supporting the anti-EID campaign.

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