The current roll-out of electronic sheep and goat identification in Victoria is driven by the need to reliably track animals from property of birth to slaughter for disease containment, food safety and market access purposes.
Electronic sheep and goat tags contain low frequency International Standards (ISO) compliant half duplex (HDX) transponders, the same as used in NLIS (Cattle) ear tags.
There has been some commentary that alternative ultra-high-frequency (UHF) technology could be used. However, there is no compelling evidence to justify such a move.
Every technology has advantages and disadvantages, it is a matter of selecting the best available for the task, bearing in mind the differing processes along the supply chain.
Many transponder technologies have been assessed by the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) Standards Committee since the commencement of the cattle tagging system in Victoria in 1999.
To date, UHF technology has not been demonstrated to work reliably at all points in the sheep supply chain.
There are various predictions on the likely performance of UHF technology on farms and in Victorian sheep saleyards and abattoirs, but these must be tested and confirmed before the technology could be considered.
Another key issue is how technology is accommodated by internationally accepted standards.
In the case of UHF technology, there are no international standards in place to support its use for livestock identification purposes.
Only recently has an international working group been formed to commence work on developing a numbering standard for UHF technology.
The mandatory sheep identification systems operating in the European Union and UK are based on low frequency ISO compliant technology, not UHF.
The cattle identification systems in Canada and New Zealand are also based on low frequency technology compliant under the same ISO standards.
From a cost point of view, there is no convincing evidence that UHF technology, if it was shown to work reliably along the supply chain, would be cheaper than low frequency technology.
In addition, there has been a considerable investment in recent years, especially by producers, but across all industry sectors, to acquire and use reading equipment and software for a range of tasks.
Most Victorian sheep abattoirs already have readers for low frequency electronic tags.
Industry software and the NLIS database are based on the ISO compliant electronic number encoded on the transponder used in low frequency tags.
Potentially the numbering used in UHF transponders would be different, leading to a need to modify industry software and the database at considerable expense.
There would have to be a dramatic leap in performance, and of course a reduction in cost, to justify such a change.
The reality right now is that there are no alternative transponder technologies currently available, or likely to be available in the foreseeable future, that will provide better reliability and ‘value for money’ than the low frequency technology we producers are all in the process of adopting.