A new study which will look at badger movements and their interaction with other badgers and cattle to look at the spread of TB across Irish ecosystems has been awarded funding by the Department of Agriculture.

Assistant professor in wildlife biology at University College Dublin Dr Simone Ciuti will lead the project.

The project is one of 21 new policy-focused research projects which will share €4m in funding in 2025.

The association between herd TB breakdown and herd nutritional, metabolic and immune status will be looked at in another project.

Multi-species swards for herd health, investigating the feasibility of oilseed processing in Ireland and evaluating national and EU comprehensive targets in organics are some of the other projects that will receive funding.

Short-term projects

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture Martin Heydon said that the funding is being made under a research call launched in 2022 and is aimed at supporting short-term projects that directly address policy, strategy or regulatory issues in the agri-food, forest and bioeconomy sectors.

“Since then, I have been pleased to award funding to 25 projects and, today, I am building on this with a further €4m for 21 new projects.”

Funding ranges up to €100,000 or €250,000 per project.

“There is a wide breadth of policy areas covered by the successful projects. This includes three projects related to TB, which will examine biosecurity measures and communication, modelling for badger population dynamics and the association between herd bovine TB breakdown and herd nutritional, metabolic and immune status.

“I am also pleased to be able to award funding to two projects which directly address recommendations of the Food Vision tillage group: investigating the feasibility of oilseed crops processing in Ireland and a feasibility assessment of organic feed milling,” the minister added.