FARMING Minister George Eustice has been asked to formally change the carcase splitting rules on sheep.

The National Sheep Association (NSA) and NFU have been backed by numerous UK organisations – including bodies representing farmers, auctioneers and abattoirs.

All have called for a move away from the "mouthing" system to a calendar-system for determining when to split carcases, arguing it would bring benefits for the whole supply chain, domestic and export markets.

Instead of checking lambs for the eruption of their first set of permanent incisors, the proposed new system would see a simple cut-off date of June 30th each year.

All lambs sent to slaughter before this date would be deemed to be under 12 months of age and, therefore, not required to have their carcase split.

Phil Stocker, NSA chief executive, said: "Despite there being no evidence of BSE crossing species from cattle to sheep in field conditions, nor evidence that scrapie poses any risk to human health, TSE regulations were brought in as a 'precautionary measure' and any change, however minor is met with resistance from Europe.

"While our two organisations will continue to fight for wider-scale reform at a European level, we feel more immediate gains can be made with the proposed change to a calendar-system. "Following an unprecedented level of industry consultation and detailed discussions with Defra and Food Standard Agency officials, NFU and NSA have confirmed this change could be made at a UK level – not EU – so we have formally requested George Eustice to go ahead with this alternative implementation of the TSE regulations."