The Scottish Government

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DEAR KEEPER

This letter is sent to you jointly by the Scottish Executive, NFU Scotland, the National Sheep Association (Scottish Region), Scottish Goatkeepers Federation and the Scottish Crofting Foundation. It contains important information about some changes being made to the current Scottish sheep and goat traceability system to comply with new EU legislation.

As explained in our previous letter dated 6 July 2005, the UK was given a temporary derogation to retain our current system instead of double tagging pending further audits of our system. These audits recommend that some changes be made and these are listed below. They have also been included in the attached guidance, which sets out the full legislative requirements of the revised Scottish sheep and goat traceability system. It is important that you understand and comply with the full requirements, as it is an offence not to do so. If you are a Single Farm Payment claimant, failure to comply with these requirements may result in penalties being applied to your payment under cross compliance. Failure to correctly identify your animals may result in them not being accepted into the food chain (under Food & Hygiene Regulations).

All movements between holdings with different County/Parish/Holding ( CPH) numbers must be notified to the Scottish Animal Movement Unit ( SAMU). Holding registers must also be kept at CPH level and it is therefore important that if you have more than one CPH in your business you take this opportunity to assess your current situation against the revised rules set out below. Otherwise, this could mean that you will be required to report moves and keep additional records/registers when you have no need to. For the majority of keepers no change will be necessary. Crofters can also carry out this exercise but should read the specific section on crofting requirements in the attached guidance.

If you have two or more permanent CPH numbers you can apply to your local SEERAD office to see if they can be amalgamated under one CPH code. It may not always be possible to do so but generally if the distance between your two CPHs is 5 miles (8kms) or less the presumption is that the CPHs can be amalgamated. If the distance is greater than 5 miles the presumption is that separate CPHs will remain. You can appeal against a decision to issue/retain more than one CPH. The appeal process may include a visit by veterinary staff to assess the locations involved on disease grounds. Factors that may be considered by SEERAD in the assessment of amalgamating CPHs include:

• The distance between fields or whether land is contiguous.
• Aspects relating to the transmission and control of disease.
• Whether the management of holdings is completely separate.

If you wish to have your CPHs reassessed, please contact your local SEERAD Area Office who will be happy to discuss the options available to you.

The changes to the current system are as follows:

• All animals born after 9 July 2005 must be identified within 9 months of birth (6 months if intensively reared) even if they have not moved off their holding of birth. Tattoos cannot be used as official identification on sheep or goats born after 9 July 2005.
• Movement tags will now be required for the outward journey of return moves for grazing, dipping or shearing other than when the move is from the holding where the animals were baseline tagged. This means all moves except moves for emergency veterinary treatment and return journeys will require baseline or movement tags as appropriate.
• The annual count of animals as of 1 January which you currently record in your holding register, must now be sent to SEERAD annually.
• Hauliers must enter the transport details on the movement document prior to leaving the holding. This includes keepers who transport their own animals.
• Keepers must provide details of their occupation and type of farming carried out to SEERAD.
• Two additional pieces of information on transport and replacement tags must be kept in your holding register.
• Only SEERAD approved eartags ordered through the Ear Tag Allocation System ( ETAS) can be applied as official identification.
• You cannot use temporary marks in place of the baseline or movement tags, for animals going direct to slaughter or for any other official purpose.
• Animals being moved to another Member State must have a second tag applied.

Enclosed is a new movement document pad and a new holding register to be used with immediate effect. Please enter your inventory total for 1st January in the new holding register and carry forward the current running total. Please discard any unused movement document pads you may have but ensure that you retain all flock records for a minimum of 6 years.

The EU legislation offers the option of using movement documents as part of the keeper's holding register. This would avoid the copying of data from the document to the register. If at inspection a document is lost or found to be incomplete this would be classed as a breach of the holding register requirements and could affect SFP payments. It is therefore essential that we assess this option further with industry stakeholders prior to deciding to adopt this option. As soon as this further work is complete we will let you know the outcome. Meantime, the full holding register requirements must be met.

We have tried to ensure the attached guidance is as user-friendly as possible but please do not hesitate to contact SAMUs at samu@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or on 0131 244 4202 for further advice.

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