8th September 2001

News

By PJ Nolan

THE National Ploughing Championships will go ahead as planned from 2-4 October. This was confirmed by the National Ploughing Association this week, following rumours that there was a threat to the running of the event.

Full details of this years event are to be unveiled by the NPA in Ballacolla County Laois next Monday.

The Department of Agriculture has already put plans in place for a full cover disease prevention plan at the ploughing match.

The plan will involve a double ring of security. At the outer level all vehicles will be disinfected and at the inner ring everyone entering the site will be disinfected.

Up to 25 Department personnel will be involved and the cost of the operation is likely to be in excess of £20,000. The Department of Agriculture have yet to negotiate the cost with the National Ploughing Association who will have to bear this cost.

Farm Relief personnel will man the heavy duty mats that will cost in the region of £8,000 and the Department will have experts on site to deal with technical and supervisory matters.

The focus of attention will be on disinfecting everything that enters the site rather than a footwear cleaning service.

All machinery from the UK to be exhibited at the ploughing match will have to be new or else possess a disinfection certificate from the authorities.

This week Same-Deutz followed John Deere in pulling out of the event, sources say that concerns over foot and mouth caused the withdrawal of this second high profile exhibitor, no other exhibitors have indicated that they will not be present but some are worried about the present increase in FMD in areas of the UK where they have farm machinery demonstrations planned in the next two weeks.

The National Ploughing Association has indicated to all UK exhibitors that any personnel visiting the Ploughing match from the UK must not have visited a farm in the previous 21 days.

This means that anyone present at on-farm machinery demonstrations after September 11 will not be eligible to travel to the ploughing match.

Its known that a major series of tillage events is to take place in the UK from September 12-13 and some of the machinery and personnel involved in these demonstrations will not be allowed travel to Ireland for the ploughing match.

The Farm Tractor and Machinery Traders Association conducted a written survey of members attitudes towards the ploughing match this week.

The survey sought members opinion on whether they intended to exhibit and if they thought the event should be held following the renewed outbreak of FMD in the UK.

The FTMTA asked if companies would be inviting support personnel from the UK to assist at their stand and what stance FTMTA members should adopt in relation to FMD at this years ploughing championships.

There was overwhelming support for the event with 90% saying that the FTMTA should support the National Ploughing Championships but 52 out of 270 members who were contacted as part the survey thought that this year's event should be called off.

Of these 17 will be exhibitors at the ploughing. These figures show the widespread concern of FTMTA members with 114 members expressing concern about the FMD situation following the recent outbreaks in the UK.

Of the 49 exhibitors who were contacted by the FTMTA, 22 said they would have UK support on their stand.

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