Statewide crackdown on sheep and goat NLIS Compliance
LIVESTOCK producers are warned of a statewide focus on sheep and goat traceability targeting identification and movement documentation at saleyards, from now until June 30, 2017.
The operation is specifically targeting producer compliance with NLIS, after increasing incidences of non-compliance in saleyards and abattoirs.
Livestock SA Chief Executive Officer Andrew Curtis said during the next two-months Department of Primary Industries and Regions SA inspectors would closely monitor livestock transactions to ensure producers, agents, saleyard operators and processors were meeting requirements under the NLIS system.
“Producers, saleyards, agents and processors all have responsibilities under the NLIS scheme, to ensure it operates well in their facility and that they and their clients are NLIS compliant,” he said.
“We understand that PIRSA inspectors will be checking the tagging of sheep and National Vendor Declarations for accuracy and completion, with a strong focus on non-vendor bred consignments. The operation is aimed at increasing the understanding and compliance with NLIS for sheep and goats, ensuring they are correctly tagged, and the NVD accompanying each mob is accurately completed.”
In 2016, Exercise Sheepcatcher II, a national sheep and goat tracing exercise showed that the current system was working well in SA but there was still room for improvement. It found that as not all producers are filling out NVDs completely and accurately – particularly for non-vendor bred consignments, the NLIS database is not being notified of some property-to-property movements, and some producers are not keeping NVD’s for the requisite seven-years.
When consigning sheep and goats that weren’t born on the property, producers must either record all of the PICs present on ear tags in the consignment on the NVD, or they must re-tag the animals with a post breeder (pink) tag assigned to the property and tick the applicable box on the NVD, including the length of time animals have been on the property.
Non-compliance penalties range from $375 fines through to prosecution for more serious offenders. Producers are also reminded to be vigilant on notifiable diseases such as footrot and lice as penalties apply for the consignment of unfit stock to saleyards in SA.