The veterinary medicine row rumbles on, despite the fact that Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has signed the statutory instrument (SI) into law.

The Health Product Regulatory Authority (HPRA), formerly the Irish Medicine Board, took the blame.

The Minister laid it squarely on the authority that it directed him that farmers would need a prescription from now on when treating worms, lice, flies and fluke.

The director of veterinary sciences with the HPRA is no doubt advising the minister based on EU legislation. If it was so cut and dried, why hadn’t we heard about this during the debate and consultation process before the SI was signed?

What were the two big changes the minister signed farmers up to? Firstly, from the middle of June next year farmers will need a prescription to buy wormer dosing products.

Secondly, the suggestion that merchants and co-ops would get the option to sell a wide range of vaccines was dismissed by the minister.

The result is that the vets get to retain control of the profits from that product category, and the co-ops and merchants are not allowed to compete. The vets argued they needed that business, to stay in business, and to continue with a 24 hour on-call service.

Some vets say they are unhappy because the SI rules will allow merchants to hire vets to prescribe wormers next year without visiting the farm or stock in question.

The vets suggest this ‘easy access to wormers’ has been part of the reason for the already established large build up of wormer resistance.

The reality is that much of this product came out of vet practices, so vets are not blameless, despite their discontent. Also, rightly or wrongly, distance prescribing for antibiotics has been with us since 2007 on the dairy side.

Of course clinical signs and measurement should dictate usage, but surely it doesn’t require a vet to take a proper dung sample and establish the requirement for treatment or otherwise?

In any case a farmer, who may well be a client, can walk into a veterinary practice shop any day at the moment, ask the assistant on duty for product without the vet knowing the request, visiting the farm or seeing the stock to be treated.

The merchants say they are unhappy because the vets get to keep the vaccine market to themselves. They feel that is anti-competitive. Also they now have to reorganise stores to take worming products off the shelves etc.

Some will also incur the cost now of employing a vet to write prescriptions. Will online selling of these products become a thing of the past?

Have we any idea of what this new regulation will cost farmers? They, as usual, are the business all the other businesses hinge on. Was an economic business case presented on how this would impact farmers? I haven’t seen or heard of any such analysis.

We don’t know what this will cost. The merchants and co-ops have very clearly said they will pass the extra cost to the farmer. Is it right that this cost be passed back solely to farmers?

The other links in the chain take control of their margin, while the farmers get squeezed because they are the weakest link in the chain. The pilots can go on strike. The vets can talk about going on strike. The farmers just milk and feed on.

What is the farmer cost?

Teagasc estimates for 2023 show that average veterinary costs for a milking cow is near €90/cow, but can reach up to €150/cow. It’s not that long ago that €50 per cow was the upper limit of vet costs.

A large part of this cost is now vaccinations. Farmers have moved from treating sickness to preventing sickness. It’s an investment. It’s insurance. It’s a labour reduction tool, but how much can the business take? Can the sale price of milk and meat keep pace?

Last month the Central Statistics Office (CSO) released its final estimates for outputs, inputs and farm income for last year.

National farm

For the ‘national farm’ so to speak, it noted veterinary expenses increased by €38m (+11%) to €390m due to the combined impact of higher prices (+6%) and volumes (+4%). That’s up on average 20% from €325m in 2020.

So, did farm output keep pace with this? According to the CSO, cattle values saw a reduction of €13m to €3.0bn. The value of pigs increased by €46m (+7%) to €668m.

Sheep farmers saw a significant decline in the value of their output. There was a steep drop in the value of milk (down €1.5bn) to €3.5bn.

So no is the answer – output prices can’t or don’t just follow increasing input prices. The model is broken if we keep heaping all input price increases on businesses that don’t have or at least have limited control of output prices.

Feed, fertiliser and energy prices all went up also. The Minister at the very least must ensure a sensible prescription model that doesn’t increase cost further is developed.

However, if a political decision is going to limit competition, increase costs at farm level and add more bureaucracy and red tape then all farmers have a problem.