This is a subscriber-only article
In 2014, former Agriculture Minister Michelle O’Neill appointed independent expert members to a new high-level TB Strategic Partnership Group (TBSPG).
Having produced its report in 2016, the TBSPG was followed by a new TB Eradication Partnership, established in 2018, and tasked with bringing a fresh approach to addressing high levels of TB in NI.
Notable is that both these expert groups, having assessed all the best scientific opinion on TB, came to the same conclusion that badgers are a contributing factor in the spread of the disease in NI, and that a cull is necessary in TB hotspot areas.
Of course, other controls outside of culling are necessary, but it is amazing just how many people in and around our industry continue to muddy the waters and suggest they in fact know best. Our focus as an industry should be on making sure DAERA delivers against the recommendations made by these experts rather than introducing new arguments questioning the overall approach.
Having spoken to farmers recently who have had their herds depopulated, it is clear it has a severe emotional and financial impact rarely acknowledged in the wider debate around bovine TB. That is especially in a situation where there is no milk to sell, but an intention to get going again, so many of the production costs are still in place.
Hidden costs
In addition, those hidden TB costs include the time taken testing cattle, the impact tests have on animal performance, and the risk of injury to both animals and people. The decades of dithering by politicians and civil servants on the TB issue is shameful.
Where herds are depopulated, or large numbers taken at a test, it also reinforces just how unfair it would be for DAERA to implement cuts to compensation payments for reactor animals. If this policy is to be introduced down the line, it must be limited to the first few cattle, not them all.
SHARING OPTIONS: