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The IFA’s animal health chair TJ Maher has called on Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon to drop newly proposed TB eradication measures that are “crude” or which will pose “unnecessary” costs for farmers.
The call comes after the IFA met one-on-one with Minister Heydon on Thursday to discuss a raft of new TB control proposals drawn up by the Department of Agriculture in an attempt to get to grips with rising levels of bovine TB.
Maher said that IFA presented “detailed and credible” proposals that would address the key drivers of TB, while remaining practical.
Department proposals of concern to the IFA include the “blacklisting of entire herds through herd categorisation”, risk-based trading, 12-month restrictions on entire herds, three-year restrictions on cow sales following extended restrictions and cuts to compensation.
The association has also claimed that farmers will be advised to effectively cull entire herds, should the new proposals come into play as they currently stand.
Opportunity for progress
“Minister Heydon engaged constructively in the discussions and his stated objective of ‘striking a balance between minimising the number of affected farmers whilst at the same time introducing impactful measures which will reduce the high levels of disease we are currently seeing’ provides the opportunity for progress to made in agreeing an enhanced programme.
“But there are number of measures proposed by his officials in the document discussed yesterday that fall well short of this criteria, are crude and impose unnecessary and significant cost and burden on individual farmers and the broader agri sector.”
The IFA puts the cost of TB controls at €150m for farmers each year, which its animal health chair said is unsustainable.
“A number of proposals contained in the document circulated by the Department of Agriculture in advance of yesterday’s meeting add enormously to this cost, devalues entire herds and leaves some farms unable to sell cows for up to five years following a breakdown, this is unacceptable and unnecessary.”
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