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Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal this week, O'Flaherty said that current projections based on the BVD eradication programme which began in 2013 show that "we can reach of a point of zero PIs (persistently infected BVD animals) in the national herd by 2020".
O'Flaherty added that this future success is predicated, however, on farmers continuing to get rid of PIs as soon as they are identified.
"We do want to see the existing measures that encourage the removal of PIs maintained and enhanced – but it is really only the Department of Agriculture that can deliver some of those measures," O'Flahery said. "That is why we are interested in meeting with Minister Creed to explain some of the concerns we have in relation to progress on a couple of fronts."
Measures delivered by the Department that encourage the removal of PIs include movement restrictions on farms where farmers have been found to retain PI calves for long periods of time. They also include biosecurity notifications to neighbouring farms.
We would like to see both those measures progress more rapidly than they are now to push on for eradication by 2020
The measures have so far had an effect in encouraging the prompt removal of PI animals – currently approximately 400 herds from a total of approximately 83,000 breeding herds are recorded as containing a PI more than seven weeks following identification.
O'Flaherty said "we would like to see both those measures progress more rapidly than they are now to push on for eradication by 2020".
In this, O'Flaherty is in agreement with the ICMSA, which has expressed similar views on pushing existing measures in order to achieve full eradication.
The chief executive added that AHI has also started the process of looking at ""some additional measures that might help that accelerated removal of PIs even further along the line".
Tissue tagging controversy
O'Flaherty also referred obliquely to the controversy that emerged at the end of last week over a report presented to AHI's BVD implementation group by the BVD technical working group. According to the Irish Farmers Association (IFA), the report found that "there is no viable alternative to tissue tagging to achieve BVD eradication."
This, however, is a step away from what was originally envisaged for the BVD eradication programme. Under the original conditions of the programme, which began in January 2013, farmers would have to do three years of tissue tagging for BVD followed by three years of lower-intensity surveillance.
O'Flaherty said that the meeting between the technical group and the implementation group "opened up a couple of questions on the subject of what the best method is of getting Ireland to the point of complete eradication of BVD by 2020".
"The report was really outlining the evidence and some options but it’s really for the implementation group to decide what happens next," he continued.
"In this instance, because some of the issues on the table are of critical importance and can only be delivered by the Department of Agriculture, it is important we have a meeting with the minister to discuss these various issues."
Tagging tenders
Finally, on the issue of the new tagging tenders, the AHI chief executive said the organisation has concerns in relation to the fact that the recently published tag approval process for the provision of bovine identification tags only provides for a dual-purpose tissue-sampling and genomic-testing tag.
"This is one of the reasons we are seeking to meet with the Department and the minister. We are concerned that this might affect the accreditation status of laboratories to test for BVD," O'Flaherty said.
"Although this is a compulsory eradication programme, the uptake has been very high. We have BVD tests results for almost 100% of the calves that are born and registered in any one year since the start of the programme. So we want to ensure the tag approval process doesn’t interfere with the logistics of BVD testing for farmers."
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