Animal Identification and Traceability
Federated Farmers is a strong supporter of biosecurity, incursion response, food safety and consumer confidence on farm products facilitating trade access. New Zealand currently uses a number of systems to achieve these objectives. As a result, we have a well-established and hard-earned reputation for producing high quality and safe meat and dairy products.
It is the Federation's view that a commercial, voluntary National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) system would have been the best option. However, the legislation is proceeding with a mandatory system, so we will now work to make NAIT as efficient as possible while keeping costs to farmers to a minimum.
As NAIT moves towards becoming operational, Federated Farmers is keen for a number of issues of particular concern to our farmer members to be resolved. The regulatory and market pressures for cattle do not exist for sheep at this stage, so economic grounds must inform any decision to expand NAIT's coverage of livestock species. The potential for misuse of farm data by government and other agencies means that assurances must be provided for its protection.
Draft legislation provides NAIT with grossly excessive compliance and enforcement powers which need to be made less draconian for farmers to have confidence they will not be abused. Farmer confidence in NAIT is essential if it is to succeed.
There has been discussion about merging NAIT and the Animal Health Board at some stage. We strongly support merging the two organisations as quickly as possible to remove duplication of costs from two separate systems keeping track of the same animals.
New Zealand farmers have a long history of innovation and adopting new technology and farm practices. Individual farmers have already adopted electronic identification and tracing technology for significant gains such as reduced labour costs, increased accuracy when weighing stock or the ability to more easily select stock on specific production traits. To enhance innovation, NAIT must have a clear and easy process for the integration of new technologies into the system, such as ultra high frequency tags.
Who Speaks For Farmers on Animal Identification
The spokesmen for NAIT on the National Board is Anders Crofoot.
You can contact him on:
Anders Crofoot, 06 372 6465, 027 462 5324 or email acrofoot@fedfram.org.nz
Our policy advisor for NAIT is Mark Ross. He can be contacted on 0800 327 646 or mross@fedfarm.org.nz
