When we were in our youth I’m sure we all had different ideas of what we wanted to be when we grew up.

When I was young, I had notions of becoming a politician, mostly because of the fact that I could see so many things wrong with society. I was under the impression that if I was a politician that I could make a difference.

Needless to say I didn’t become a politician and obviously I have no regrets. I certainly couldn’t put up with the way that it takes so long to get anything done. It seems like so much gets lost in the political minefield.

We hear so many great promises and then when things don’t work out it turns into a blame game. If things need doing then they should be done.

Therefore, it really annoys me that the compulsory BVD (Bovine Viral Diarrhoea) testing and eradication programme has stumbled along without any clear sign of it being introduced.

I certainly believe that the Minister for Agriculture Michelle O’Neill wants to see the programme in place, but someone needs to get a grip on the issue.

It’s now approaching three years since the introduction of the voluntary phase and we are very little further forward. When I started in the voluntary phase, I was told that this would count towards the three years of testing that would be required once the eradication programme became compulsory. In other words, with three years of testing now completed, I should be able to stop tissue tagging.

Clarity

I would like someone to tell me now where I stand. Am I going to have to tissue tag for another three years? This would mean being out twice as much money as the farmers who didn’t bother doing anything.

This is surely sending out the wrong signals. The farmers who try to do the right thing are again being financially penalised. If the decision is taken to introduce an eradication programme for a different disease, what farmer is going to bother doing anything unless they can see an immediate financial benefit or the scheme is made compulsory?

I thought that we, in Northern Ireland, had a state-of-the-art tagging and traceability system. I was of the opinion that we were the envy of a lot of our European neighbours. Now it turns out that a database designed to handle all the tissue tagging information is not capable of holding all the data if the scheme became compulsory.

Well if the system is not up to scratch then this should have been sorted out three years ago. I really think that the Minister should be asking some serious questions as to why this has taken so long. To me it just looks like a political football which is being tossed about at the farmer’s expense.

Rewarded

I am completely convinced that those who are doing the tissue tagging are being financially rewarded with improved herd fertility and health. But it has got so hard to convince other farmers who only seem to be able to see the extra cost.

I am led to believe that around 40% of farmers are now in the voluntary phase of the tissue tagging and it would be a shame to let these farmers become disillusioned.

Please get this sorted without any further delay, and we can then try and catch our neighbours who are now so far ahead of us.