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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-09-07 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Sheep and Goat Electronic Identification System

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (14:27): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development a question regarding traceability.

Leave granted.

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: On 20 July this year, in a meeting of state and territory agricultural ministers, federal Minister Watts announced that the decision had been made to develop a national mandatory sheep and goat electronic identification system. My questions to the minister are:

1. Does the Malinauskas Labor government support the mandating of individual electronic identification of sheep and goats?

2. Will the Malinauskas Labor government commit to providing financial assistance to support South Australian producers in adopting electronic identification and, if so, how much?

3. Will the Malinauskas Labor government commit to providing technical support for South Australian producers to switch from a paper-based system to an electronic system?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (14:28): I thank the honourable member for her question. The state government is supportive of improvements to traceability that assist with emergency response and also maintaining access to international markets. At the meeting of Australian agriculture ministers on 20 July this year, there was unanimous support for the development of a national industry-led sheep and goat electronic identification system, known as EIDs.

A national framework will be developed by federal and state agricultural departments with industry input, because it is incredibly important that it is industry led, and that framework will be considered at future meetings of agriculture ministers.

The state government, through PIRSA, engages regularly with the state's livestock industry on national traceability systems. Over the past three years, the state government, through the red meat and wool growth program, has taken a proactive approach to the implementation of EIDs by working with producers and service providers in driving the uptake of EID and other precision livestock technologies to promote the productivity and also the traceability benefits that it can provide.

Livestock SA has been provided with $140,000 to analyse the benefits of an EID system to the South Australian sheep and goat industries and to develop an implementation strategy to transition the industry to this system. Once that project is complete, I will be able to provide more information to the chamber about some of those transition mechanisms.

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