Ball Now in Minister’s Court Following TB Summit Meeting – IFA

IFA Animal Health Chair TJ Maher said the ball is now very much in the Minister’s court following robust and forthright discussions with the Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon and his senior officials on the future direction of the TB programme at yesterday’s summit meeting.

TJ Maher said IFA have put forward a detailed and credible set of proposals that address all the key drivers of this disease, between and on farms, that minimise the impact on farmers while utilising the tools available in a practical and pragmatic way.

“Minister Heydon engaged constructively in the discussions and his stated objective of ‘striking a balance between minimising the number of affected farmers whilst at the same time introducing impactful measures which will reduce the high levels of disease we are currently seeing’ provides the opportunity for progress to made in agreeing an enhanced programme,” he said.

“But there are number of measures proposed by his officials in the document discussed yesterday that fall well short of this criteria, are crude and impose unnecessary and significant cost and burden on individual farmers and the broader Agri sector,” the IFA Animal Health Chair said.

TJ Maher said the controls and their impact in the current programme are costing farmers over €150m a year, this is unsustainable, must be reversed and certainly cannot be increased in an enhanced TB programme.

“A number of proposals contained in the document circulated by the Department of Agriculture in advance of yesterday’s meeting add enormously to this cost, devalues entire herds and leaves some farms unable to sell cows for up to 5 years following a breakdown, this is unacceptable and unnecessary,” he added.

These include blacklisting of entire herds through herd categorisation and risk based trading, 12-month restrictions on entire herds, 3-year restrictions on cow sales following extended restrictions, cuts to compensation and advisory to effectively cull entire herds.

TJ Maher said the proposals put forward by IFA comprehensively addresses wildlife spread, cattle to cattle spread of the disease and residual infection in herds in a straightforward and pragmatic way by implementing tried and trusted measures effectively and utilising the testing tools available. 

He said IFA have engaged proactively in this process from the outset and remain committed to agreeing a practical, effective and fully resourced enhanced TB programme with the Minister and his officials.