GIRLING TELLS COMMISSION TO STOP WASTING FARMERS' TIME
Posted, November 24, 2011 @ 10:00
Euro MP Julie Girling has today told the European Commission to stop wasting farmers' time and issue a statement of compliance for electronic identification of sheep (EID).
The regulation for the electronic identification of sheep came into force on the 1st January 2010 and keepers are required to achieve 100% accuracy on all sheep movements. However, farmers are facing financial penalties for being in breach of cross compliance regulations, through no fault of their own but simply because the technology is unreliable.
Mrs Girling said “Farmers fought a hard battle against EID and have been pushed into an impossible situation. The regulation has come into action but simply doesn't work. How can farmers achieve 100% accuracy when the technology provided for the job is failing them daily? The Commission must make a clear and definitive statement on how British Farmers are going to be treated if they are unable to comply with legislation due to technology failure.
"I have spoken at length with EU Commissioner Dali and with the UK Government about this problem. The time has come for the Commission to stop dragging their heels and to actually help farmers across the Eurozone.
"I understand that DEFRA have been working on a solution which they have put to the Minister who must now make a decision on whether to implement a tolerance for individual sheep EID readings through Central Point Recording Centres (CPRC’s). The NFU have always been concerned the new proposals don’t go far enough and that tolerance must be built into the regulation at European level.
"It is essential the European Commission review the implementation of this regulation to allow some level of tolerance to reflect the unreliability of the technology currently available to read sheep movements and account for the fact that accurately reading and recording millions of individual sheep tags by hand is a massive burden on businesses across Europe and impossible in the real world.”