Deputy agriculture minister Alun Davies' decision to invest in a Welsh EID electronic reporting system raises major concerns and should not have been taken without proper consultation with the Welsh sheep industry, the Farmers' Union of Wales said today.
In a statement issued yesterday, the deputy minister said Wales would introduce a "bespoke" sheep EID system for Wales and that he was keen to work with the farming industry to ensure the system worked.
He also stated that they would be reassessing whether the current slaughter derogation remained appropriate alongside a central sheep database.
FUW's hill farming committee chairman Derek Morgan said: "The question of whether a database should be introduced was considered at a recent joint meeting of the FUW's livestock and hill farming committees and delegates came out overwhelmingly against a database because of the complete lack of information about pros and cons.
"There is no legal requirement to introduce a database, so Europe cannot penalise Wales for EID's inherent failures based upon us not introducing a database. There is even a risk that introducing a database could compound the major problems which exist due to EID's failures.
"There is also a major question about whether the current regulations will be continued given moves happening at an EU level, including a legal challenge.
"This is a critically important issue and the industry should have been properly consulted regarding the matter and given information regarding what introducing a database would really mean for sheep keepers. Yet we have been provided with virtually no information."
Mr Morgan added that suggestions that the slaughter derogation could be abandoned in Wales were also a major concern.
"We welcome the deputy minister's commitment to working with the industry, in line with Gareth Williams' 'Working Smarter' report, but this simply has not happened regarding this decision and suggesting that red tape and costs could be increased massively by abolishing the slaughter derogation goes completely against the 'working smarter' ethos."
Mr Morgan said it had even been suggested that introducing a sheep database would mean having to report sheep movements twice, once on paper and once through the internet.
"If this happened, it would make a mockery of 'working smarter ', and could be better described as 'working stupider'."
The FUW has already written to the Welsh Government highlighting major questions which must be answered before any decisions in relation to a database are made. These include:
- How well the existing Scottish database is working and whether rumours of major failures are correct?
- How well the Scottish database system integrates with farm management software?
- The cost implications for farmers and government of adopting a database?
- How practical it would be for data to be shared between separate databases in England and Wales, and whether this would happen in real time or at intervals?
- How a database would work in practice for farmers, and whether movements would have to be reported multiple times?
- How pre-2010 animals not subject to individual recording and reporting would be dealt with in a database?
- How missing animals would be dealt with in a database?
- Whether the important benefits which exist because of the slaughter derogation would be lost if a database was introduced.