The head of a South Australian livestock agents association has said his members wished the introduction of electronic tagging in Victoria “would all go away.”
Naracoorte Combined Agents Association chairman Darren Maney said about 70 per cent of all sheep and lambs from the lower south-east of South Australia went to Victoria for slaughter and processing.
“I think we wish it would all go away, that’s about the truth of the matter,” Mr Maney said.
“While everybody is pro-traceback and an organised system, I get very worried about individual states introducing things.”
He predicted “a lot of headaches” in the first 12 months of the scheme, as it was likely to cause enormous logistical nightmares.
“The Department of Agriculture makes all the rules, but ultimately the cost rests with the agents and the industry.”
He questioned the phase-in time, which he said was relatively short, and predicted it would cause a “lot of headaches”, particularly with scanning problems.
Electronic tagging for cattle took “eight or ten years to sort out,” he said.
“I think the same thing is going to happen here, unfortunately.”
But he said South Australia was in a fortunate position, in that it could see how the program was rolled out in Victoria
Sheepmeat Council of Australia president Jeff Murray said his organisation maintained its position that there should be a national program.
“Currently Victoria has stepped out of that line and it’s not going to be easy to maintain a national program, when we are always on two different pages,” Mr Murray said.
He said the roll out would be case of “watch and see”, as there would be a lot of ongoing costs, which were likely to come back on producers.
“There will be issues that need to be covered off.
“I can’t see many of the state governments putting funding to eID’s to the extent the Victorian government has.
“It will all finish up on the producer’s table, as our state budgets are so far up the creek, it’s impossible to get money for anything,” he said.
Mr Murray said the council had asked the Victorian government to delay the implementation of the scheme, particularly when big mobs would be going through the saleyards in January and February, in high temperatures.
“It’s not necessarily a good outcome,” he said.
“It’s hard to know what the impact on interstate trade will be; what the implications are going to be, we are yet to see.”
