Asaja Rejects the New Electronic Identification System for Cattle

The agricultural employers' association Asaja expressed its disagreement this Friday with the new electronic identification system for bovine livestock that will come into effect at the end of next June. All animals born from June 25 onwards will be required to carry an electronic chip in one ear, with which the Ministry of Agriculture, following community guidelines, wants to improve livestock traceability. Asaja states in a press release that the ministry, "without listening to the sector, will complicate and increase the cost of animal identification with a new system that most EU countries have rejected and whose cost falls exclusively on the livestock farmer". For this association, the conventional plastic identification is "sufficient and adequate to allow and guarantee animal traceability", and the electronic tag will represent an additional cost and will not be useful while the livestock chain is not prepared with the appropriate technology. For all these reasons, Asaja ...