The Department of Agriculture has committed to establishing a dedicated telephone helpline for farmers who enter a TB breakdown.

The helpline will focus on advising farmers in relation to what happens during a TB breakdown.

The helpline is one element of a revised communication strategy included in the TB Action Plan.

ADVERTISEMENT

As part of this strategy, a guide for farmers to the TB programme will also be developed, the Department stated.

Moving from communication to breeding, the action plan proposed that a national breeding strategy is developed to increase the resistance of the national cattle herd to TB.

The plan states that the use of bulls with higher levels of TB resistance should be incentivised through the On Farm Market Valuation (OFMV) scheme.

“Incorporating TB resistance into the OFMV scheme will improve the breeding decisions of farmers and increase the level of genetic resistance to TB in the cattle population.

“In the absence of a cattle TB vaccine, breeding is our only option to increase resistance to TB in the national cattle herd.It is of concern that historically some high EBI bulls had very poor TB resistance,” the plan stated.