Farmers and vets in Northern Ireland are becoming increasingly frustrated with the new Northern Ireland Food Animal Information System (NIFAIS). Introduced last September to replace the previous Animal and Public Health Information System (APHIS), which had operated for 15 years beyond its contract, NIFAIS has faced numerous complaints and has left users feeling stressed. The new system, designed to improve traceability in the agri-food sector, has failed to work properly since its launch.
The Ulster Farmers’ Union has been contacted by many members struggling to complete everyday tasks on the new system and fearing the potential for penalties due to missed regulatory deadlines. Vets, too, have had issues, stating that NIFAIS is extremely slow to upload data while being difficult to process information that was previously easily available. Additionally, there has been no training provided for the new system, which has left users searching for their way through the platform with no guidance.
The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs has stated that it recognises these issues and is doing its best to address them. A statement from the department advised that farmers experiencing difficulties should contact their local Daera direct office, and that there were no issues preventing farmers from using NIFAIS providing they were correctly set up.
Traceability systems are an essential feature of Northern Ireland’s agri-food industry as they help facilitate trade and provide guarantees of food safety and animal health, but with users becoming increasingly frustrated and stressed, it remains to be seen how long NIFAIS will continue to operate in its present form.
The implementation of a new system was necessary because the precursor to NIFAIS, APHIS, had become outdated. It was once regarded globally as a pioneering solution in this space, offering supply chain-wide traceability, but its technological infrastructure was no longer suitable in the modern technology landscape. A group was established several years ago to explore potential alternatives, but the process was fraught with difficulty
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