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DEAR SIR: Following the Department of Agriculture’s recent issuing of TB herd history risk statement letters and the subsequent press statements by them backing up their decision, one might get the impression that this was the final piece in the jigsaw of eradicating TB from the country.
The reality on the ground as we all know and the elephant in the room is that the reservoir of TB infection remains not only in cattle but also in our wildlife (badger and deer). It may be politically or publicly unacceptable to cull the numbers of deer or badgers required to successfully eradicate TB and, if this is the case, then the Department will never achieve its objective.
Despite this, the Department continues to engage in spin that it will somehow miraculously achieve its target by the year 2030 even though it fails to address the deer issue, in particular.
All these letters seek to do is throw certain farmers under the bus – can you imagine a suckler farmer categorised as high-risk trying to sell his weanlings? It’s time now for senior officials in the Department to sanction a cull of the required wildlife or admit that it is publicly unacceptable and that cattle testing is TB control, not eradication. If they continue with the sham of letters, etc, they will lose all credibility.
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