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By Vice President Robert Neill
At our National Conference, we welcomed the Scottish Government’s announcement to introduce Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) cattle tagging by 2026. Since February, we continued to tease details of how this will be implemented, with the Bovine Electronic Identification (EID) Industry Stakeholder Working Group having discussed the proposed phased approach with Government.
UHF is a newer technology versus the now dated Low Frequency (LF) alternative. The benefits of UHF outstrip those of LF, as illustrated in the table included in this
blog. Notably, the increased reliability to achieve 100% read rates on farm, in transport and in markets, improving health and safety for anyone working with cattle. It will be able to streamline the husbandry tasks on-farm including inspections, as well as the potential to phase out paper passports, saving the industry and
Government tens of thousands of pounds.
Following February’s announcement, NFU Scotland set out its position and asks of UHF Bovine
EID to Scottish Government ministers.
These were as follows:
- The roll out of EID technology should start with newborn cattle being EID tagged. The remaining herd should be re-tagged with an event driven approach supported by funding through the future support framework to support the transition.
- The mandate should only apply to the primary tag, individuals should have the freedom of choice regarding the secondary tag.
- Government must publish a clear and detailed timetable to illustrate the next steps.
ScotEID carried out a pilot study to assess Ultra-high Frequency (UHF) for cattle, on the back
of earlier pilot work looking at Low Frequency (LF) for sheep. The pilot research found that LF could only achieve a 95% read rate, which is not acceptable for the traceability and identification requirements for cattle. Other barriers were found including interference with
dairy parlour systems and limited read range.
The pilot went on to assess the potential for UHF in both controlled and field trial scenarios. It was concluded that overall UHF technology has greater potential and advantages over LF.
On 2 June the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) announced Low Frequency (LF) would be used in England. Fundamentally, UHF EID gives those who want to use technology the opportunity to get the most out of it, however if someone doesn’t, tags will continue to be identified as they are today via manual reads. This mitigates any concern about cross-border trade. We urged both DEFRA and the Scottish Government to ensure an effective roll-out of forward-looking technology.
LF-EID deployment is guided by a number of international standards. The ISO committee for animal identification is in the process of agreeing which LF standards need to be replicated for UHF and creating those deemed to be necessary. For example, ISO6881 has already been published to guide how UHF EIDs should be encoded and a basic conformance standard for checking that encoding is correct has been drafted. However, unless and until CTS is replaced for England and Wales, ISO6881 cannot be implemented in the UK (essentially because CTS cannot accommodate the required accompanying change in how visual cattle IDs are formatted). Consequently, to avoid further delays, the Scottish Government has indicated that UHF-EID will be introduced in Scotland by using the USDA Interim Standard for encoding UHF EIDs (which is compatible with the existing format of visual IDs and thus with CTS). The USDA did not require further standards to be issued alongside its encoding standard, but ScotEID has indicated willingness to provide further documentary guidance for tag and equipment manufacturers if required.
As Chair of the Bovine EID Industry Stakeholder Working Group, we will continue to engage with Scottish Government officials on delivering UHF EID by 2026, through an event-driven phased approach.
Following the SPS agreement, we are also engaging with Scottish Government on the details of the agreement which may impact how EID is implemented in Scotland. The details and timelines are still to be confirmed on the agreement.
Contact Brooke Harwood on 07823556253
Author: Robert Neill