Farmers and the Department of Agriculture have joined forces to tackle a TB outbreak that has locked up 13 farms in Ballyduff Upper, Co Waterford, over the past few months. Since last autumn, the Department has removed 200 reactors from these farms on the hill overlooking the Blackwater River.
Farmers and the Department of Agriculture have joined forces to tackle a TB outbreak that has locked up 13 farms in Ballyduff Upper, Co Waterford, over the past few months.
Since last autumn, the Department has removed 200 reactors from these farms on the hill overlooking the Blackwater River.
“That’s one of the most stressful things that can happen on a farm,” drystock farmer Seán Harris told the Irish Farmers Journal. “It’s like driving a stake through your heart,” added dairy farmer John Leamy, who has lost 76 cows. “There’s desperation in these parts.” Both their herds are currently restricted.
Worst hit is their neighbour Johnny Hannon, who milked 43 cows until nine went down in a TB test last November. The 60-day re-test revealed another 19 reactors, triggering full depopulation. Many cows close to term had to calve before being sent to the factory.
Knackery
“The calves went down to the knackery to be put down,” Hannon said. Some cows left during the snow in February and the lorry couldn’t climb the hill. On the short walk down, they went for the field gates. “They thought they were going out to grass,” the farmer said.
The last animals left the farm on 23 February, and since then it’s been only “silence”. While he can start farming again on 23 June, Hannon has not yet decided what do to. “Why would I go back if the problem isn’t solved?” he said.
Attention has now turned to stemming the source of the outbreak. Harris pointed out that he and other affected farmers ran closed herds. “It has to be wildlife,” he said.
The farmers said increasing numbers of deer were encroaching onto their fields, with intense tree-felling activity and wind farm construction on neighbouring land potentially disturbing them.
“If the deer are on the move, so are the badgers,” said local IFA branch chair Michael J Walsh.
He, Waterford chair Kevin Kiersey and IFA animal health officers led a delegation of affected farmers to meet Department officials on 23 April to agree a plan of action. The IFA has written to all farmers in the area, asking them to identify setts where Department technicians will snare badgers to control TB.
The farmers are also working with the Department and the National Parks and Wildlife Service on permits to shoot sample deer and have them tested.
Badgers
At this point, “epidemiological investigations conclude that spread from wildlife (badgers), contiguous neighbourhood spread, within-herd spread and in some cases, residual infection were the likely sources of infection,” Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed said in reply to a recent parliamentary question about the outbreak from local TD Mary Butler.
“Deer are noted as being present but there is no evidence to date that they have any significant role.”
There has been good collaboration between farmers and the Department so far, according to Kevin Kiersey.
“My Department has dealt with this outbreak in an effective and efficient manner, including meeting with the local farming body and will continue to do so,” Minister Creed said.
Local farmers agree, but they are not writing a blank cheque. “We want to co-operate, but we also want farmers to be treated with respect,” Walsh said.
Uphill battle
Affected farmers said they faced an uphill battle in accessing hardship payments, and stressed that compensation for reactors does not make up for losses on income from milk.
From valuations to the rules applying when bringing in a new bull, they feel they are left alone to find out about the complex implications of TB restrictions.
After losing his entire herd, Johnny Hannon showed the Irish Farmers Journal a letter illustrating this frustration: the Department shaved €250 off the valuation of one of his cows because she had calved down before being sent to the factory and was no longer considered in-calf.
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