Down On Gordon's Farm

This kind of nonsense may not interest the majority of people who live in towns and cities, but the costs get passed along to them one way or another-

EU tells farmers to tag every sheep in Britain. That's 30 million sheep at £1.50 per tag plus costs of equipment, admin, etc.

Farmers could be taxed for foot and mouth outbreaks. This is policy-making by cretins. The source of the last outbreak, in 2007, was the Pirbright laboratory, not a farm.

Euro Sheep Electronic Tag Revolt

Regulate, regulate, regulate...the European Union's psychotic obsession with legislating for absolutely bloody everything is provoking British farmers who don't want to be compelled to electronically tag their sheep.

The regulations, to be introduced in January next year, mean each sheep must be fitted with an electronic ear tag. The move is designed to track all individual sheep in the wake of the foot and mouth epidemic of 2001. But Britain has more sheep than anywhere else in Europe, and farmers, already under pressure from falling prices and low profit margins, say it is not practicable or even necessary.

Apparently we have 30 million sheep in the country:

The huge costs associated with introducing the scheme - around £5,000-£6,000 for a machine to scan the tags, which themselves could cost between 50p and £1.50 each - would be enough to sink some farms.

It's likely this idiocy will be knocked back but the question should be asked, why was money and time spent on proposing the idea in the first place?