Lambs with electronic EID or RFID tags.

AGRICULTURE Victoria workshops on the adoption of electronic identification by sheep and goat producers will continue in the Loddon and Mallee regions next month.

The workshops at St Arnaud, Birchip, Swan Hill and Ouyen follow similar sessions for sheep and goat producers in other areas of the state last year.

All sheep and most breeds of goat born in Victoria from January 1 2017 require an electronic NLIS (sheep) tag before they leave their property of birth.

Agriculture Victoria’s Meat and Wool Program manager Kate Linden said it is important that sheep and goat producers were familiar with what is required and what support is available.

“Agriculture Victoria is on hand to help producers with this new system and make sure they have access to the information they need.

“We’ll talk through how to purchase ‘cost-neutral’ electronic tags, what producers’ responsibilities are and what support is available, including how to access co-funded equipment grants,” she said.

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Topics of the workshops include:

• Timelines for the implementation of electronic identification (EID)
• What producers will need to do to meet the requirements
• Transition package – details of the $17.06 million package to support industry, including cost-neutral tags for producers, grants for the purchase of optional infrastructure (including hardware and software) and a question and answer session.

Producers can register at www.agriculture.vic.gov.au/EIDworkshops or phone 136 186 for more information.

Additional workshops and field days are currently being developed to look at management opportunities some producers may have as a result of individual identification of their sheep and goats.

Agriculture Victoria has also received valuable feedback from producers about additional training needs such as, equipment, software demonstrations and the NLIS database. Any other suggestions, please email them to: [email protected].

The workshops will run for around two hours at the following locations:

St Arnaud Town Hall, Monday, February 6, 10am

Birchip Community Leisure Centre, Tuesday, February 7, 10am

Swan Hill, The Grain Shed Church of Christ, Wednesday, February 8, 10am

Ouyen Football Clubrooms, Thursday, February 9, 12pm.

Source: Agriculture Victoria.