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Farmer Huw Jones - left - explains the shortcomings to Emyr Jones and Jill Evans.[/caption]
Farmers' Union of Wales members and officials have highlighted the major shortcomings of sheep EID to Wales MEP Jill Evans during a visit to a Caernarfonshire farm.
At Gwern Farm, Saron, near Llanwnda, Ms Evans heard how farmer Huw Jones and his family worked hard to make EID technology work as one of 14 Welsh EID trial farms but still experienced major problems.
"Using the technology and having to record and report each and every movement represents a great deal of extra work and costs, and we are finding a significant number of the tags are not being picked up by scanners," said Mr Jones.
"That means us having to go through sheep individually, read the tags manually and then write the numbers down. Doing that in horizontal rain and freezing cold weather means a great deal of extra work and a far higher risk of human error.
"It is extremely frustrating when you have bent over backwards to get the technology to work but are still finding major problems which could lead to financial penalties.
"It feels sometimes as if the system has been set up just in order to make it impossible for sheep farmers to avoid fines.
"We are also experiencing numerous tag losses due to the requirement for double fencing imposed by various environmental schemes. How on earth can we be expected to achieve 100 per cent EID accuracy under such conditions?"
FUW president Emyr Jones, who recently met EC officials to discuss the huge problems associated with compulsory sheep EID, said: "The experience of Welsh farmers since the compulsory introduction of EID in 2010 confirms everything that we warned the EC about over the previous decade and there is a desperate need for acceptance by the EC of the shortcomings of the technology.
"Disappointingly, the Welsh Government has now confirmed that it will not allow tolerances for tag read-rates, which means a higher risk of farmers being fined as a result of technological failures that are beyond their control.
"The legal requirement for farmers is 100 per cent EID accuracy but everyone accepts that EID technology cannot deliver 100 per cent accuracy. Something desperately needs to be done to change a situation which I believe is completely immoral."
Ms Evans said: "It gives me no satisfaction to see that all the problems we predicted with EID have occurred in practise. It is simply unworkable. Farmers have made every effort to comply with the law but the fact is that it is impossible to tag and account for every single sheep in a flock.
"The electronic equipment available is not yet able to deliver a 100% reliable result and I have seen how easy it is for tags to get lost. Yet unless they comply 100% farmers will be penalised and this is unacceptable."