Nait on way through last hoop

John Ritchie, national sales manager for Zee Tags, explains the correct way to fit RFID tags at a Beef & Lamb NZ (formerly Meat & Wool NZ) field day on Alastair and Ann Reeves’ western Waikato farm in April.

01-05-2010 | Richard Rennie

With national electronic ID getting the tick and a new farming year about to kick off, farmers are being advised to consider tagging stock this season before next year's National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) legislation.

Under the NAIT rules, October 2011 marks the compulsory electronic tagging for all cattle, with deer following in 2012.

At this stage officials are not confirming the prospects for electronic sheep tagging. NAIT head Ian Corney says farmers who buy feeder calves this season or any young store cattle may want to request that tags be in place.

"Any stock that stays on farm and is not going out the gate until later in 2011 would be better to be tagged now, and those tags are easily available for farmers to buy," he says.

This is despite protocol and standards for a national stock identity database still being decided. "There are no regulatory or legislative hoops to jump through with the database; we are in the process of setting up a NAIT establishment board, tasked with the job of getting the database up and running."

Options include either building a new database from the ground up, or acquiring an "off-the-shelf" system.

Corney says he is not in a position to say who is on the establishment board, or what the outcome of the database review is likely to be. Rumour has swirled for years around how the database will be set up and managed, including the possibility of LIC turning its dairy database expertise to running it.

LIC chief executive Mark Dewdney says: "LIC is fully supportive of the benefits a national database will deliver to New Zealand agriculture. We do not plan to bid to build the NAIT database but will actively support the establishment of one, lean national traceability database of livestock which does not over-ride or duplicate other recording that farmers undertake."

He says farmers should be able to add information at one point only, such as in their MINDA data. The elements relating to traceability would then be transferred to the NAIT database. "There would be no duplication of effort or cost to farmers."

Corney maintains that despite the agonising length of time it has taken to formalise NAIT, timing is more relevant now than even two years ago. Overseas supermarket chains are increasingly demanding full traceability and McDonalds stated last year that electronic ID was essential.

The company's Australia-New Zealand supply chain buying manager Arron Hoyle says the risk of error in a paper based system is too great and in the event of a biosecurity risk the information would be needed fast.

"Consumers expect transparency and part of that is traceability; you can't have one without the other."

Corney says the real risk to NZ is that many of the countries it competes with internationally are well along the way to provide EID to our markets if required.

He acknowledged the time lines are still tight to get EID in place by next October, including both legislative and promotional requirements.

Tags will continue to be ordered from a NAIT-accredited service provider such as LIC, the Animal Health Board, CRV or others, and tags will continue to be supplied by NAIT-accredited tag manufacturers, such as Allflex, Zeetags, Leader Tags or others.

There will be an additional cost to farmers of between $1.50 to $2 an animal over current tagging compliance costs. This is projected to fall as additional tag manufacturers become accredited and more tags are used. Corney does not envisage there will be the same issues "selling" the scheme to farmers as those faced when the AHB Tb card system was launched early in the 1990s.

"They were starting cold then; by now farmers who have their heads around stock requirements when being moved, including AHB forms and tags, changing from one tag to another, should not be a big thing."

The key issues will be ensuring farmers comply when recording movements from one farm to another, or to another private buyer. Slaughter and saleyards will be handled by scanners.

Government funding will fully fund the initial $7 million required at the development stages of NAIT, including database establishment and scanning technology at key locations. It is expected ongoing costs of around $6 million, while also government funded initially, ultimately will be funded through industry levies.

Last year the road transport industry rejected the scheme based on the cost of scanners and practical difficulties of scanning stock into trucks. Corney says there is no compulsion for trucks to be equipped, but he does see a market opportunity there for some operators.

"If you take an operator in an area like the Waikato where there may be a high number of lifestyle blocks running a few head of cattle - these blocks are unlikely to have scanning equipment. There could be the opportunity for an operator to offer that as part of their service on board their truck."

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