Flock register requirement for 2002 to be made easier for sheep farmers
As a result of feedback from flockowners and via farmer representative bodies, it acknowledged that a full reconciliation with the flock register might be difficult for some farmers given the fact that the group approach to the recording of details in the register had been agreed.
To tackle this problem, it has now been decided that the reconciliation for 2002 should be, in effect, a census of the flock.
This would mean that by December 15, 2002, flockowners would be required only to gather and count their flock, ensure that all sheep are tagged, replace any lost tags and record the numbers of any such replacements in the register in the normal way. It would not be necessary to determine or record the numbers of the lost tags. The Department is issuing a letter to all 44,500 flockowners notifying them of the decision. Flock registers, which had been handed in by some 1,400 flockowners as part of an intensive countrywide IFA campaign to change the system, are being returned.
Meanwhile, the Department is continuing to examine other aspects of the register with a view to seeing how it might be made more user friendly.
But it pointed out that any further adjustments which might emerge from this exercise would fall to be introduced in 2003 rather than this year.
"In the meantime, all flockowners should continue to record all movements of sheep onto or off their holdings in the existing register, and should of course continue to operate all other elements of the NSIS as it now stands," the Department stated.
Joe Kelly, Secretary, National Hill Farmers Association, which met with the Department last September and outlined proposals to modify specific aspects of the NSIS, particularly the reconciliation element of the flock register, welcomed the decision.
Agriculture Minister Joe Walsh told the Dáil earlier this month he remains fully committed to the principles of the national sheep identification system.
He said the NSIS provides the means by which each animal in the national flock can be identified and traced from birth to carcass with ensuing benefits in areas such as disease monitoring and control, consumer assurance and flock management. Based on its own monitoring, his Department believed all aspects of NSIS, including the register, are generally working well. But he had always made it clear that specific difficulties which flock owners may encounter would be examined with a view to resolving these within the key parameters of the system.
"Adjustments can be considered which will address the identified concerns in a manner which maintains the integrity of both the identification and traceability dimensions of NSIS and takes account of forthcoming proposals from the EU Commission," he said.
