Survey shows 500 sheep farmers not prepared to carry costs of EID tagging

Hundreds of sheep farmers are not prepared to carry additional costs for EID tagging, according to a new survey.

A survey of 500 farmers at Sheep 2018 in Athenry last weekend sends a strong message to Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed that farmers are not prepared to carry the €2m additional costs of EID.

The IFA conducted a survey of almost 500 sheep farmers, requesting their views on the key questions of lamb losses this spring, EID tagging and the associated costs, tag quality, price rewards for lamb quality and sheep supports.

The survey found that 62% of farmers believe the Department of Agriculture should pay for the additional €2m costs of EID sheep tagging, while a further 31% of farmers consider that the factories and marts should pay the additional costs.

In addition, 62% of farmers surveyed do not believe that there will be any benefit to them from EID.

IFA National Sheep Chairman Sean Dennehy said IFA has made it very clear to Minister Creed that sheep farmers are not prepared to carry the cost of EID. He said the decision of the Minister to impose EID from October 1st 2018 will cost sheep farmers €2m per year, and we cannot afford additional costs on this very low income sector.

IFA has met with Minister Creed and put detailed proposals to the Department of Agriculture for a €1 per tag subvention on the costs of EID. The IFA has also proposed that it should not be necessary to extend EID to sheep that go from the farm of origin directly to slaughter as it adds nothing to traceability.

Mr Dennehy said: "It has been a very difficult year for sheep farmers with higher feed costs, increased lamb losses and now a drought situation."

The survey found 44% of sheep farmers encountered an increased level of lamb losses during the severe weather this spring. Of these, 24% said they had losses greater than 10% and over 7% had losses above 20%.

Mr Dennehy said this proves the point that losses last spring were very high and will leave lamb supplies tighter this year.

One-third of farmers have encountered a problem with the quality of sheep tags from their supplier. Of these, 14% said they have a problem on quality with 10% or more of the tags supplied.