This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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Extension to Sheep and Goat Traceability
19/07/2006
The Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department (SEERAD) welcomes the European Commission's decision to extend the temporary derogation to the Sheep and Goat Traceability until June 2007. This involved lengthy negotiations by SEERAD and DEFRA officials with the Commission and crucial input from key industry stakeholders.
Although not a full derogation, which is our ultimate aim, this is a successful outcome in the circumstances. The Commission, in giving their decision, accepted that our current system did provide the traceability required but only with full compliance from the industry. The auditors will be returning to scrutinise the compliance aspects of our system early in the New Year and to check that the recommendations made from the previous audits have been implemented. Only a successful outcome will lead to a full derogation being given.
The members of the Scottish industry who have taken part in the audits to date gave an excellent view of how our system works but it is essential that all sheep and goat keepers play their part by ensuring they understand their obligations and fully comply with them. SEERAD will be writing out to keepers shortly explaining two additional changes that need to be made to the current system, highlighting the need to fully understand their obligations and giving sources to contact for further advice. SEERAD will also be working with Industry Stakeholders to improve the flow of information at local level to ensure a high level of compliance.
Background
The EU legislation (21/2004) came into force on 9 July 2005.
The legislation requires double tagging of sheep and a recording system that fails to provide traceability in Scotland due to the stratified nature of the Scottish sheep industry. Following extensive lobbying by SEERAD, other UK Departments and Industry during the drafting stage of the legislation the Commission included an option for Member States to apply for a derogation to keep their current systems provided they provided at least the same level of traceability.
The UK applied for a derogation and were audited in January 2005. As some failings were identified a temporary derogation was given until April 2006. A further audit was carried out at the end of December 2005 and SEERAD and other UK Departments have been working through the findings with the Commission with input from key industry stakeholders. While most of the previous concerns had been addressed a couple of new issues were raised. UK agreed to make two further changes and as a result the Commission were content to recommend approval of an extension to the current temporary derogation.
The first change is that keepers will now be expected to replace lost eartags 'within 28 days of discovery' instead of the current requirement of 'As soon as possible'. The second, is where we have, in addition to the preferred option of double tagging sheep for export, indicated that some Member States may accept export sheep with a second tag that does not bear the same number as the UK birth tag so long as it is cross referenced to it in the keepers holding register. This possible option is now withdrawn.