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The Department of Agriculture should look at the TB model in Scotland which achieved TB-free status in 2009, the IFA has said.
This was achieved “with fewer prohibitive controls on farms and no blacklisting of farmers”, the association’s animal health chair Pat Farrell said.
“For the Department to say there is no successful eradication programmes anywhere in the world that don’t use herd risk assessments is simply incorrect.
"Scotland has shown what can be done, and it didn’t involve sending out these type of letters to farmers,” he said.
UCD professor at the Centre for Veterinary Epidemiology and Risk Analysis (CVERA) Simon More told the Irish Farmers Journal that TB risk categories were the next logical step in the TB programme.
Trading restrictions
In response, Farrell said there were “no scientific papers that show devaluing cattle make them less likely to spread TB”.
“Are Professor Simon More and the Department of Agriculture hiding the real truth behind their TB herd risk letters - is this the first step in identifying herds by category in order to prohibit movements with herds of a higher status?” he questioned.
The Department needed to “come clean” on how devaluing animals and entire herds could eradicate TB if their objective was not to prohibit or restrict trade from these herds.
“Farmers pay €35m directly each year into the TB programme and they expect a robust testing programme for that, particularly given our export profile,” Farrell said.
Testing
The testing programme was the basis for Ireland’s access to export markets. Farrell said for the Department to question the programme’s effectiveness was irresponsible and potentially damaging for exports.
The TB Forum is due to reconvene at the end of this month to discuss the issues surrounding the letters.
Farrell stressed that the IFA would not support a continuous rerun of a format that had already failed farmers.
“The Minister needs to take charge of the situation,” he said.
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