Ten sign up to land mobility

While there has been a good level of interest in NI’s land mobility programme, with a database of 170 people, getting actual agreements in place is a more difficult task, with 10 signed up to date.

According to programme manager John McCallister, the new arrangements comprise a mix of share farming, contract heifer rearing, farm partnership and leasing arrangements.

“One of the most limiting factors that has come to light over recent months is not that of getting general agreement reached between two interested parties, but rather the challenge of getting younger people, particularly those with young families, to move to different parts of Northern Ireland,” said McCallister.

He also points to the “strong belief” held by large numbers of farmers that moving away from the tradition of conacre letting agreements will, in some way, render land ineligible for Agricultural Property Relief (APR) under Inheritance Tax laws.

“This is an absolute myth and it’s one that we need to de-bunk immediately. Land will always remain eligible for APR, as long as it is used for agricultural purposes,” said McCallister.

High-cost Welsh badger cull

The results from a project undertaken in Wales which involved the trapping of badgers, and testing the animals for bovine TB, suggest that it is a very expensive option that could provide uncertain outcomes.

The Welsh project has many similarities to the ongoing five-year TVR (Test, Vaccinate, Remove) study in NI, which is due to finish at the end of this year. The study here involves testing badgers for TB, vaccinating those that test negative and culling those that test positive.

The Welsh project, undertaken last autumn on three farms with a history of TB, involved the testing of badgers, taking blood samples and culling those that were positive. Both the Welsh study and the TVR approach use the same DPP (Dual Path Platform) test.

However, the Welsh project has raised some questions just how accurate this rapid field test actually is. A total of 37 badgers were captured on the three farms, and of these only five tested positive using the DPP test. Two of them tested positive in lab tests for TB, but all tested negative after 12 weeks of a tissue culture. There were also two badgers that tested negative in the field, but came up positive in lab tests for TB.

In total, the Welsh study cost £383,212, or £76,662 for each of the badgers killed.