On 22 October 2014, the Minister for Agriculture announced that Agriculture Ministers from each State and Territory jurisdiction had agreed to make necessary improvements to the National Livestock Identification Scheme (NLIS) for sheep and goats by building on the systems already in place. The scheme is important for managing biosecurity, food safety, and animal welfare risks. The COAG Decision Regulation Impact Statement (RIS) for improving the NLIS assesses the costs and benefits of three options for improving traceability:
- Option 1: Enhanced mob-based system— improvements in the verification and enforcement of business rules throughout the supply chain.
- Option 2: Electronic identification system—the electronic tagging of animals with exemptions for sheep and goats sold directly from their property of birth to abattoirs or export depots.
- Option 3: Electronic identification system without exemptions.
The RIS identifies Option 1 as the preferred option for implementation and recommends that further work be undertaken at the state level to clarify the appropriate values for initial traceability and implementation costs for all options. The RIS also recommends that the costs and benefits of transitioning from a mob-based system to an electronic identification system be reviewed within five years since the costs of implementing alternative options may change over time with changes in labour and capital costs. The COAG decision RIS was prepared by Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences for the Agricultural Minister’s Forum, and assessed as adequate by the Office of Best Practice Regulation.
2.3 MB]
1.5 MB]