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		Sheep tagging campaign gathers pace Monday, 6th October 2008 The campaign to get the EU to reconsider its system of electronic tagging for sheep received a boost after European sheep farming organisations presented their findings to the European Parliament's agriculture committee today. Last December, ministers agreed to introduce the tags from 2010, along with a system recording the movement of every individual sheep and goat, despite Conservative attempts to delay the system further and to make it voluntary, rather than compulsory. At present the tags cost around £1.50, which in some cases is more than the value of sheep themselves. As the UK has a third of the entire sheep population of Europe, we will be most severely affected. The cost to the UK to implement the system has been estimated to be as high as £42 million a year. A cost which many livestock farmers will struggle to bear. Roger Helmer, the Conservative MEP for the East Midlands has launched a Written Declaration calling on the EU to reconsider these plans. He said: "The tags are expensive and offer no benefits to animal health. We already have an effective batch-based reporting system and this works very well in the UK. "This is no time for the EU to be forcing costly and unpopular proposals on our sheep producers, particularly when our current system has worked very well. "There may be a time for electronic tagging of sheep, but the technology is just not ready for it yet. "The EU must recognise that these proposals will de exceptionally damaging to British sheep farmers and withdraw them, otherwise we face the loss of many of our 33 million sheep, with huge repercussions for our rural landscapes."