Proposals to increase the National Animal Identification and Tracing Scheme (NAIT) levies are needed to address years of under-investment says an industry body.
The Mycoplasma bovis (M bovis) outbreak in 2017 highlighted serious concerns with NAIT, with considerable costs incurred by industry and government as a result of the need to manually trace livestock.
Since then, NAIT has been working to stabilise the system after farmers and industry members said the system is difficult to use and did not perform during the disease outbreak.
This work has been largely funded from NAIT reserves, built up from previous years’ unspent levies but the reserves are now depleted, and more funding is needed to continue.
Increases are proposed on the tag levy, slaughter levy and deer industry and Crown contributions.
In 2012, the NAIT tag levy was set at $1.10, then reduced over time to its current rate of $0.90. The slaughter levy was set at $1.35 and was reduced to $0.50 per head.
NAIT Limited now proposes to raise the tag levy to $1.35 and the slaughter levy to $1.77 per head.
Deer industry and Crown contributions are proposed to increase to maintain the 35/65 per cent Crown/industry funding model. This would see the Crown contribution rise from the current $2.14million to $5.54million.
Federated Farmers meat & wool chairperson William Beetham says it’s frustrating to see levies take big jumps due to historical underinvestment in industry assets such as NAIT.
“It would be far better to have appropriate, well-planned investment with gradual increases in levies rather than big increases to fix problems,” he says.
“But now, if we’re to achieve a user-friendly system that delivers biosecurity critical to the sustainability of our industry, we’ll need to get the revenue in place and hold OSPRI to account to deliver a system that empowers farmers, not frustrates them.”
Federated Farmers dairy chairperson Wayne Langford questions whether the current planned investment goes far enough.
“It is the act of tagging, registering and complying with NAIT that is an issue for farmers, as well as the actual interface itself,” Wayne says.
A statement from OSPRI says they believe the increases are the minimum needed to deliver a system that’s easy to use and can perform during a disease outbreak.
“They’ve eaten up accumulated reserves to fund the program and to continue the upgrade programme, they need more revenue,” Williams says.
“It’s pertinent to note the 35 per cent Crown contribution is also proposed to increase from the current $2.14 million to $5.54 million.”
William says Federated Farmers wants to see improved measures for transparency around transactions in NAIT animals, and new stock agent standards governing behaviour, retained as priorities.
“We can’t stumble on with a flawed platform and farmers being fined when sometimes non-compliance is because of lack of support to help them make sense of a poor-performing system.”
Formal consultation on the proposal is now open until 5pm, 25 February 2022, with a decision on the increases expected from the NAIT Board in late March.
Any changes to levies will be effective from 1 April 2022.
