Richard Ashworth MEP, Conservative Agriculture spokesman in the European Parliament has hailed a move to delay the implementation of costly individual identification requirements for sheep, as "vitally important for the future of the sheep sector in the UK and a diplomatic success for the UK".
The European Commission’s Standing Committee on Food Chain and Animal Health (SCoFCAH) approved a proposal put forward by DEFRA, to delay the requirement for individual movement recording of the "historic flock" for three years. This will mean that farmers will not have to report the individual movements of sheep born before the 31st December 2009 until the start of 2015. The ruling will allow many farmers to delay electronically tagging of historic flock until 2015 and could save farmers £11 million.
The decision comes after many years of lobbying by Conservative MEPs against the electronic tagging and individual identification of sheep.
Richard Ashworth Conservative Agriculture spokesman in the European Parliament said:
" This is great news for the sheep sector and comes after years of lobbying on this issue by Conservative MEPS"
" The current timeframe for introducing individual recording was too tight for the historic flock. The UK has the largest sheep flock in Europe and will benefit greatly from being able to continue using the batch system."
" We still have concerns about sheep electronic identification, particularly with regards to cross compliance rules, but this decision is a first step to ensuring that the regulations on sheep identification are better suited to the unique position of the sheep sector in the UK."
