New tag suppliers from November 1st next

OPEN competition for the supply of cattle tags has been confirmed by the Dept. of Agriculture to start from November 1 next.

The Department have confirmed that they have decided to approve tag suppliers whose ear tags meet the requirements as set down by EU law.

Those requirements stipulate that the tags are tamper-proof and are not reusable – the Dept. said it had already met potential tag suppliers and invited suppliers to submit applications to them.

Up until this year, all cattle tags came from Mullinahone Co-op in Tipperary but now the supply situation has been opened up with different suppliers now likely to be ‘in the market’ for the tags.

The new supply arrangements are to remain in place until December 31, 2017, and over the coming weeks the Dept. have committed to meeting all stakeholders involved in tagging including the farming organisations and the BVD Implementation Group.

Galway IFA Livestock Committee Chairman, Michael Flynn, welcomed the clearing-up of the situation as regards the supply of tags but warned that there must be no increase in costs.

“Under no circumstances can there be any increase in costs to the farmer and we are hoping that with competition that the prices might actually come down for farmers.

“It is our understanding that farmers with supplies of old tags from this year will be able to continue using them until December 31, 2017,” said Michael Flynn.

He said that the new tags would have a changed numbering system consisting of the first three numbers for Ireland (372), a seven-digit herd identifier and then a further five numbers for the individual animals.

It is understood that the new numbering system is to facilitate a standard scanning of the tags across all countries of the EU.

President of the ICSA [Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association), Patrick Kent, said that they had ‘long favoured competition between tag suppliers’ in order to give farmers a best option for value for money when ordering them.

He has also asked the Dept. to make farmers aware that the cost of each tag includes a 38 cent ‘voluntary levy’ to ICBF. [Irish Cattle Breeders Federation].

“We want to ensure that the tag ordering process makes this clear and that farmers have a straightforward choice in opting in, or opting out, of this levy,” said Patrick Kent.