Lochhead reassured by EU's Dalli over electronic tagging

UK AGRICULTURE ministers emerged from a meeting in London yesterday with EU consumer policy commissioner John Dalli expressing their encouragement at his attitude to the thorny issue of the electronic identification of sheep.

Scottish Cabinet secretary for rural affairs and the environment Richard Lochhead welcomed the promise made by Dalli to discuss the issue with his counterpart in the EU Agricultural Directorate, Dacian Ciolos.

Lochhead said he hoped the outcome would be guidance for Scotland and the rest of the UK that would reassure farmers that cross-compliance issues related to EID regulations will be proportionate.

"The commissioner was very receptive of how improvements can be secured under some of the challenging circumstances faced by our farmers."

Along with his colleagues, UK agricultural minister Jim Paice, Michelle Gildernew from Northern Ireland and Elin Jones from Wales, Lochhead stressed the importance of the sheep sector to UK agriculture. He said: "We don't want to undermine what they do by bureaucracy. We want a commonsense approach."

Under the current rules, farmers may have their sheep electronically read at approved third- party central point recording centres, such as markets and abattoirs, instead of on farms.

This flexibility is estimated to save the industry in the UK something between 7 million and 20m.

The requirement for individually recording movements of older sheep, born before 31 December 2009, is scheduled to come into force on 31 December 2011, but Dalli indicated he would discuss the postponement of this regulation with Ciolos.

Currently all sheep born after 31 December 2009 and retained for further breeding need to be individually electronically identified.

The commissioner also agreed to respond on the issue of extending the slaughter derogation to cross-border trade once he has obtained a legal opinion.