A European Commission proposal to implement a more rigorous TB-testing regime has caused concern among Irish MEPs.

Under regulations due to come into force in April 2021, cattle moved six months after a farm’s annual herd test would have to undergo a 30-day pre- or post-movement TB test.

Fine Gael MEP Mairead McGuinness said the consensus among experts, livestock marts and farmers was that the proposal was an untargeted blanket approach.

The first vice president of the European Parliament said: “A better approach would be to target those herds that have a problem because 97%-plus of our 112,000 herds are free of TB.”

Impact

The proposal, as it stood, would have a huge impact in terms of bureaucracy and cost at farm level according to McGuinness. She highlighted that farmers understood the need to tackle TB but stressed there needed to be stakeholder buy-in.

We need all of the farmers to be on board with this

“If we get resistance, we will achieve nothing. We need all of the farmers to be on board with this and I will be very blunt and say that at the moment, they're certainly not on board. They regard this as an unwelcome imposition on their businesses,” she said.

Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher also called on the Commission to rethink its approach. He said the proposals would target low-risk herds in an unnecessary way, rather than high-risk herds.

Movements

Kelleher pointed out that an animal may move four to five times in its lifetime before slaughter. He believed the imposition of pre- and post-movement tests would negatively impact small family farms.

This will have a very profound impact on family farms

He said these farms did not have a pre-planned sale process and instead sold animals in reaction to market conditions.

“They (farmers) do want to eradicate TB, but this will have a very profound impact on family farms and the viability as well,” Kelleher said.

Funding

In response, a representative for the European Commission said it wanted to eradicate TB and a lot of financial resources were being devoted to Ireland.

The DG SANTE official said one of the reasons it was so difficult to eradicate TB was the number of movements of cattle in between farms.

He indicated there could be a derogation from the individual testing requirement for herds in low-risk areas but offered to meet with MEPs and farmers to discuss their concerns.

Read more

Farmers 'fed up' with relentless imposition of TB controls

TB testing to be ramped up for all farmers