The tax paid by Victorian farmers on the sale of sheep and goats is set to triple within three years, exceeding the tax paid on the sale of calves.
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The sheep and goat duty paid by Victorian farmers increased from 12 cents, which was set in 1999, to 19c last year, and is now 27 cents a head.
From 1 January 2023 the duty will be 35c, while the sale of calves are taxed at 15c each.
Victoria's Sheep & Goat Compensation Fund allocated more than $3.4 million in revenue to six projects last year, including $1.9m to subsidies National Livestock Identification System tags, $727,684 toward the Victorian Farmers Federation biosecurity extension program and $133,300 to Agriculture Victoria's SheepNotes newsletter.
The new levy will increase the project allocation to an estimated $9.9m next year.
Western district producer and fund chair Michael Craig said the process of increasing the duty went through a six month public consultation period in 2019 and was supported by the advisory committee.
"Victoria's duty is still half South Australia's rate," Mr Craig said.
"Projects the levy has helped fund include developing a rapid test for anthrax, the Significant Disease Investigation program where producers are compensated for animals that are autopsied while any emerging diseases can be identified in real time.
"The fund also invests in programs that ensures we have vet capacity in the case of an outbreak."
He said a major investment the fund was making was in continuing the tag tender to ensure Victorian Sheep Producers were getting the cheapest tag price in Australia.
"The fund invests in biosecurity programs that improve our industry's ability to prevent, monitor and control endemic, zoonotic and exotic diseases," Mr Craig said.
"The fund has reserves in place to be able to fund emergency animal disease outbreaks, for example anthrax."
Mr Craig said projects were put to the ministers advisory committee that were mostly sheep producers.
The duty increase coincides with the final step in Victoria's rollout of its NLIS for sheep and goats, with all stock now required to be tagged with a NLIS electronic tag before leaving a property from 1 January.
"This system provides assurances to our export and domestic markets that we can quickly trace animals in the event of a disease outbreak or food safety issue. It gives Victorian producers a significant advantage and added industry protection," Victoria's chief veterinary officer Graeme Cooke said.
Sheep Electronic identification (EID) was introduced in Victoria in 2017.
Since then farmers have purchased more than 51 million NLIS EID sheep tags and almost 35 million sheep and goat movements have been recorded on the NLIS database.
"It provides for excellent traceability as indicated by the recent SAFEMEAT sheep traceability evaluation which showed that Victorian EID tagged sheep were 99 per cent traceable, compared to 70 per cent traceability for interstate sheep that do not require electronic tags," Dr Cooke said.
Annabelle Cleeland
Annabelle Cleeland is a Stock & Land journalist. She has worked at Australian Community Media for more than a decade serving in a number of roles including editor, senior journalist and national sheep & wool writer. She runs a fine Merino wool property with her young family in North-East Victoria.
Annabelle Cleeland is a Stock & Land journalist. She has worked at Australian Community Media for more than a decade serving in a number of roles including editor, senior journalist and national sheep & wool writer. She runs a fine Merino wool property with her young family in North-East Victoria.
