The large number of tags which go missing from cattle each year, could be down to the types of tags or the way they have been applied to the animals, it has been suggested.

There was strong criticism last week of the Department of Agriculture’s “unreasonable approach” to cattle ID cross compliance from the Ulster Farmers’ Union as they spoke with the Assembly’s Agriculture Committee at Stormont.

UFU President, Ian Marshall said that tag quality was an issue as well as DARD’s insistence over a limit to the number of missing tags.

However Pat Donnelly, Livestock ID Manager with Fane Valley said they are having good results with their Caisley tags which claim 99 per cent retention.

“Reports are good after being on sale for a year,” explained Pat, illustrating the robust applicator and tag system on their stand at Balmoral Show.

He said the German manufacturers of the tags showed great attention to detail in the production of the tags.

Pat explained a number of problems that farmers encounter with tags on animals, some tags have metal pins which can break and it could be down to the way they are tagged to the animal. Sometimes, the tags get caught up in net wrap from silage bales.

He recommended that the female part of the tag is inserted to the front of the ear and the pin should be inserted from the back of the ear and that the tag should be applied between two lines of cartilage.

Fane Valley distribute the Caisley tags throughout Northern Ireland. They are also involved in the distribution of the new tissue sample tags.

Pat showed the importance of the tagging system to Raymond McBrien, a large supermarket retailer from Irvinestown as he visited the Show. He said: “Traceability of meat would be key for us. We buy our beef from Linden Foods.” UFU President, Ian Marshall said: “It is clear to us that DARD’s insistence to ‘gold-plate’ European requirements is putting Northern Ireland’s herd keepers at a distinct disadvantage when compared to other UK regions and ROI where standards are much more tolerable and reasonable. DARD has presented proposals to the Agriculture Committee to relax their cross compliance penalty matrix, however, the proposals do not go far enough and in no way bring Northern Ireland’s standards in line with our counterparts in GB or ROI.

“In January 2014, DARD amended their penalty matrix for cattle ID cross compliance and set a completely arbitrary threshold where if either 10% or 20 single missing tags were found at inspection, this would result in an automatic breach of cross compliance. What has farmers most aggrieved by the change is that this is not in fact required in any EU legislation. DARD has taken a number of liberties with this issue and we seriously question how they can set a generic threshold when the number of cattle and rearing conditions within each of Northern Ireland’s 20,000 herds varies so considerably.

“Tag quality is another relevant issue, and while there are some very good tags on the market, there are also some poor quality ones and this is something DARD and DEFRA are directly responsible for as they approve the tags which are for sale in Northern Ireland. At the very minimum between 6-8% of cattle tags are replaced each year in Northern Ireland and while this may seem relatively low it is at least 50% higher than in ROI, where the replacement rate stands at about 4% per annum.

“What is perhaps most galling to farmers is that an animal with a single missing tag at inspection is still fully traceable; they can still be closely monitored on the Aphis system which even allows DARD to monitor how often farmers replace their tags,” he added.

The large number of tags which go missing from cattle each year, could be down to the types of tags or the way they have been applied to the animals, it has been suggested.

There was strong criticism last week of the Department of Agriculture’s “unreasonable approach” to cattle ID cross compliance from the Ulster Farmers’ Union as they spoke with the Assembly’s Agriculture Committee at Stormont.

UFU President, Ian Marshall said that tag quality was an issue as well as DARD’s insistence over a limit to the number of missing tags.

However Pat Donnelly, Livestock ID Manager with Fane Valley said they are having good results with their Caisley tags which claim 99 per cent retention.

“Reports are good after being on sale for a year,” explained Pat, illustrating the robust applicator and tag system on their stand at Balmoral Show.

He said the German manufacturers of the tags showed great attention to detail in the production of the tags.

Pat explained a number of problems that farmers encounter with tags on animals, some tags have metal pins which can break and it could be down to the way they are tagged to the animal. Sometimes, the tags get caught up in net wrap from silage bales.

He recommended that the female part of the tag is inserted to the front of the ear and the pin should be inserted from the back of the ear and that the tag should be applied between two lines of cartilage.

Fane Valley distribute the Caisley tags throughout Northern Ireland. They are also involved in the distribution of the new tissue sample tags.

Pat showed the importance of the tagging system to Raymond McBrien, a large supermarket retailer from Irvinestown as he visited the Show. He said: “Traceability of meat would be key for us. We buy our beef from Linden Foods.” UFU President, Ian Marshall said: “It is clear to us that DARD’s insistence to ‘gold-plate’ European requirements is putting Northern Ireland’s herd keepers at a distinct disadvantage when compared to other UK regions and ROI where standards are much more tolerable and reasonable. DARD has presented proposals to the Agriculture Committee to relax their cross compliance penalty matrix, however, the proposals do not go far enough and in no way bring Northern Ireland’s standards in line with our counterparts in GB or ROI.

“In January 2014, DARD amended their penalty matrix for cattle ID cross compliance and set a completely arbitrary threshold where if either 10% or 20 single missing tags were found at inspection, this would result in an automatic breach of cross compliance. What has farmers most aggrieved by the change is that this is not in fact required in any EU legislation. DARD has taken a number of liberties with this issue and we seriously question how they can set a generic threshold when the number of cattle and rearing conditions within each of Northern Ireland’s 20,000 herds varies so considerably.

“Tag quality is another relevant issue, and while there are some very good tags on the market, there are also some poor quality ones and this is something DARD and DEFRA are directly responsible for as they approve the tags which are for sale in Northern Ireland. At the very minimum between 6-8% of cattle tags are replaced each year in Northern Ireland and while this may seem relatively low it is at least 50% higher than in ROI, where the replacement rate stands at about 4% per annum.

“What is perhaps most galling to farmers is that an animal with a single missing tag at inspection is still fully traceable; they can still be closely monitored on the Aphis system which even allows DARD to monitor how often farmers replace their tags,” he added.