A lack of focus on badger density reduction emerged as a key point of contention the IFA has with the Department of Agriculture’s TB eradication programme at an association meeting in Cootehill, Co Cavan, last Wednesday.
IFA animal health chair TJ Maher questioned the efficacy of moving areas from badger removals to badger vaccination.
TB herd incidence – the number of new herds going down over a 12-month period - tracked around 2.5% when badger vaccination was first rolled out, but is now approaching the 6% mark.
“At a time when we continue to have increasing [reactor] numbers, it is unacceptable that the resources are not available to deal with the spread of disease on the ground,” he stated.
Moving cattle
Maher said that ongoing and worsening “significant breakdowns” in vaccination areas are not the result of farmers “moving cattle up and down the road to one another”.
“But yet when a townland becomes infected, suddenly, all the farms up and down along these townlands are becoming infected.”
The association’s animal health executive Tomas Bourke outlined that the IFA is also “fundamentally opposed” to the introduction of the “risk-based trading narrative” that the Department “continues to trot out”.
“This would stick a red flag on any herd that has had TB within the last 10 years but allow these animals to be traded, simply devaluing them.
“The alternative approach would consider compensating for scenarios where there are higher-risk animals identified in farms that may be still infected [but not showing up in tests].
“That is a position we are prepared to discuss.”
What does the Department advise I do to reduce the risk of going down with TB?
Fence-off badger setts to prevent cattle access to the area where badgers most commonly defecate.Report setts so that badgers can be removed or vaccinated, depending on your area.Breed your own replacement stock, if possible.Get a pre-movement test done when buying in cattle, instead of a post-movement test. The seller will be restricted if an animal goes down in a post-movement test, so there is no benefit to not testing before the animal enters the new herd.Select TB resistant bulls.
A lack of focus on badger density reduction emerged as a key point of contention the IFA has with the Department of Agriculture’s TB eradication programme at an association meeting in Cootehill, Co Cavan, last Wednesday.
IFA animal health chair TJ Maher questioned the efficacy of moving areas from badger removals to badger vaccination.
TB herd incidence – the number of new herds going down over a 12-month period - tracked around 2.5% when badger vaccination was first rolled out, but is now approaching the 6% mark.
“At a time when we continue to have increasing [reactor] numbers, it is unacceptable that the resources are not available to deal with the spread of disease on the ground,” he stated.
Moving cattle
Maher said that ongoing and worsening “significant breakdowns” in vaccination areas are not the result of farmers “moving cattle up and down the road to one another”.
“But yet when a townland becomes infected, suddenly, all the farms up and down along these townlands are becoming infected.”
The association’s animal health executive Tomas Bourke outlined that the IFA is also “fundamentally opposed” to the introduction of the “risk-based trading narrative” that the Department “continues to trot out”.
“This would stick a red flag on any herd that has had TB within the last 10 years but allow these animals to be traded, simply devaluing them.
“The alternative approach would consider compensating for scenarios where there are higher-risk animals identified in farms that may be still infected [but not showing up in tests].
“That is a position we are prepared to discuss.”
What does the Department advise I do to reduce the risk of going down with TB?
Fence-off badger setts to prevent cattle access to the area where badgers most commonly defecate.Report setts so that badgers can be removed or vaccinated, depending on your area.Breed your own replacement stock, if possible.Get a pre-movement test done when buying in cattle, instead of a post-movement test. The seller will be restricted if an animal goes down in a post-movement test, so there is no benefit to not testing before the animal enters the new herd.Select TB resistant bulls. 
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