Have your say on proposed NAIT levy changes

The consultation process opened today and runs for a month to Thursday July 23.

The consultation proposes increasing the levy rates, primarily to help strengthen the delivery of the NAIT (National Animal Identification and Tracing) scheme and ensure it remains fit-for-purpose.

NAIT plays a key role in protecting New Zealand’s livestock industry and wider economy.

OSPRI’s chief executive Sam McIvor says NAIT needs to have accurate, up-to-date information to support faster and more effective responses to disease outbreaks and eradication, as well as underpin market access and assurance.

“It’s well known that the NAIT system is a major roadblock for farmers and other industry players.  We need to update it to make it easier to use, remove duplication and save farmers’ time.

“Traceability has never been more critical to our sector. The scheme needs to perform better and a new NAIT system is at the heart of that. We’re asking for farmer support to make that change.”

The NAIT scheme is funded jointly by farmers and the government, with the costs shared across the dairy and beef cattle, and deer livestock industries.

The Ministry for Primary Industries contributes 35%, Deer Industry New Zealand 2%, and the remaining 63% is split between the dairy (54.59%), and beef (45.41%) industries. This shared approach means the scheme is joint industry-government led.

Dairy and beef industry contributions are collected via farmer levies set under the National Animal Identification and Tracing (Levies) Regulations 2012 on:

·       the purchase of NAIT tags (tag levy),

·       animal slaughter (slaughter levy), and

·       animals that can’t be tagged (unsafe to tag levy)

More information about the proposed changes is on the OSPRI website. The consultation discussion document and online submission form are here: NAIT levy consultation 2026 | OSPRI