New vet medicine rules will threaten the survival of co-ops and licensed merchants and create a monopoly for vets, according to the Independent Licensed Merchants Association (ILMA).

The requirement for farmers to have veterinary prescriptions for anti-parasitic medicines is due to come into effect on 1 December. Fears are growing in the industry that the system will create a two-tier system that disadvantages co-ops and licensed merchants – forcing farmers to get prescriptions from vets, even though vets also sell these medicines themselves.

Ray Doyle of ICOS said that the changes will effectively “bankrupt” the entire licensed merchant sector over the next number of years.

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“Co-ops and merchants are essentially being legislated out of business by the Department of Agriculture.

“The Department has refused directly to allow the inclusion of all vaccines to be prescribed by protocol vets.

“This is completely counter-intuitive due to the recent furore of the non-vaccination of weanlings for export. Including all vaccines to be made available by merchants and co-ops would greatly increase the uptake of vaccine usage by all farmers,” Doyle said. Meanwhile, Ollie Ryan, owner of Midland Veterinary, said that this is the biggest threat to the rural economy since the closure of post offices.

“Many small merchant won’t survive this and it will pose a serious threat to a number of rural jobs. A monopoly is on the way, it’s going to happen because all the small merchants I’m dealing with around the country are getting out of this game,” Ryan said.