Farmer Focus: Inspection brings questions over duplication
© Richard Stanton Firstly may we wish you a happy, healthy new year. We hope it will be a prosperous one.
Our new year started with an inspection.
Even when everything is in order the letter arriving through the door announcing the imminent arrival of an inspector is never stress-free.
This was a visit from trading standards.
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He checked through all of our paperwork and inspected our feed-storage facilities.
All have been previously checked during our Farm Assurance inspection, but as the Food Standards Agency (FSA) don’t recognise Farm Assurance schemes as a competent body to carry out the feed hygiene part, our local authority were been employed by the FSA to duplicate the inspection.
There were no issues and he left with us breathing a sigh of relief and muttering what a nice chap. Our reaction may not have been so positive had the outcome been any different.
See also: How to survive a farm inspection
During his visit the topic of conversation inevitably led to the new EID arrangements in Wales.
From the 1 January non-EID slaughter tags will no longer be acceptable and all lambs intended for slaughter should either have an EID slaughter tag or full EID, another extra cost to the farmer.
As of January 18, EID Cymru will allow sheep movements to be reported electronically to a new Welsh database.
There will also be the arrival of a new-style paper licence, but farmers have no idea what the new licence will look like or how the new system will work.
The Farmers’ Union of Wales is holding a series of open evenings with EID Cymru to explain how to use the new system, so hopefully it will all become much clearer then.
We have now scanned our lowland flock of sheep and housed our triplets, twins and early lambers.
Scanning percentages are slightly down on last year, but this is due to having a lot less triplets.
Helen is still complaining that we had far too many triplets last year, which ended up with her having more orphan lambs to look after.
We have had a few more barrens, these will be closely scrutinised and the older ones or second year barrens will be heading to market.
Mark and Helen Williams run 1,000 ewes and 40 suckler cows across 283ha of part owned and rented land.