Saleyards should have worn fees say farmers
Farmers furious about extra layers of bureaucracy have something new to fume about – saleyards are now charging them for their part in the national animal identification and tracing scheme ( NAIT) to track cattle.
Farmers already pay NAIT tag and slaughter levies per head of cattle ranging from $ 1.10 plus GST a tag to $13 plus GST a head at slaughter for ‘‘impractical to tag’’ animals.
Organisations responsible for Waikato stockyards have confirmed they are charging an administration fee of $ 1.50 plus GST per head of cattle, with half paid by the seller and half by the buyer.
Ollie Carruthers, the Waikato regional manager for New Zealand Farmers Livestock, which runs the Frankton and Morrinsville saleyards, said the fee was to pay for equipment and extra staff needed to meet the scheme’s requirements.
‘‘ At Morrinsville, for instance, there are four extra staff involved just for the reading of the cattle [tags], and about $60,000 worth of gear.’’
The New Zealand Stock and Station Agents’ Associ- ation said the fees had been taken up across all saleyards in New Zealand.
‘‘The introduction of the mandatory NAIT scheme has had a significant impact, not only on farmers but also on every saleyard in New Zealand, resulting in increased costs through additional labour and administration input to process NAIT requirements,’’ spokeswoman Bronwyn Gibson said.
Many yards had invested in computing, tagging and tag-reading equipment, and extra staff.
‘‘To date, no saleyard has received financial support from NAIT to implement the scheme. However, sale- yard operators have undertaken independently to make a committed effort to ensure the scheme is managed as efficiently as possible for all their clients.’’
The association and NAIT Ltd emphasised they were administration fees, not NAIT levies.
Federated Farmers Animal ID spokesman Anders Crofoot said that ideally saleyards would have absorbed the cost.
The NAIT scheme is designed to enhance New Zealand’s ability to respond to a biosecurity threat such as a disease outbreak, by providing information on individual animal locations and movements.