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DAERA officials are slowing down preparations for a no-deal Brexit and are considering the implications of the new draft withdrawal agreement, NI chief vet Robert Huey said.
“My head is about to change from preparing for no-deal, to starting to think about Boris’s deal. Who knows where that will take us,” Huey told delegates at the NI poultry industry conference at Loughry on Tuesday.
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A key area of no-deal planning within DAERA had involved preparing for an increased demand in export health certificates, which would have to accompany exports of animal origin products moving to the EU.
Each certificate must be signed by a department vet and Huey said that the number needed in NI each year was expected to rise from 18,000 at present to 1.9m under a no-deal Brexit.
“In the last few months, we have trained 400 veterinarians, we have trained 300 trade certification support officers, we have trained admin staff and we put in place an ICT system.”
“All this has been done in the environment of no government in NI and a government being in confusion in the UK. It has been difficult,” he said.
AMR
During his presentation, Huey warned delegates that issues surrounding animal welfare and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) were not going to disappear.
“AMR is not something that will happen in the future, it is happening now. There are people dying in the cystic fibrosis ward in Belfast City Hospital because the antibiotics won’t work any more,” he said.
Government figures released on Tuesday show that sales of antibiotics for use in food-producing animals fell by 53% from 2014 to 2018.
At the conference in Loughry, Huey praised the NI poultry sector for reducing antibiotic usage in recent years and maintained that measures adopted by poultry producers around animal husbandry and on-farm hygiene could be better applied across other sectors.
On animal welfare, the chief vet said that campaign groups can have significant influence over politicians. He gave examples of beak trimming in poultry and tail docking in pigs as two areas that non-government organisations (NGOs) are actively campaigning on.
“We have to make sure that we in government give ministers a balanced view and they are basing their facts on information from more than one source, and not just the NGOs,” Huey said.
“Sometimes it can be very difficult, particularly if a party has put a welfare issue in their manifesto,” he added.
Egg producers wary of move to barn system
The British Egg Industry Council (BEIC) has worked with animal welfare groups to develop an industry standard for barn production systems labelled under the British Lion Quality mark.
In his presentation at the NI poultry industry conference, Mark Williams from BEIC said that the move from enriched colony cages to barn systems will cost the industry between £250 and £300m.
Of the 14m hens in enriched colonies in the UK at present, Williams estimates that 9m to 10m will need to move to barn systems to supply UK retailers who plan to stop stocking eggs from caged hens by 2025.
However, the change follows a £400m investment in the industry ahead of the switch from battery cages to enriched colonies in 2012, and producers are wary that eggs from barn systems could eventually be phased out in favour of free range.
Taking questions from the floor on Tuesday, Williams was asked if he was confident that welfare campaigners would not turn their attention to barn systems in the future.
He admitted that the industry “cannot afford that to happen again” and maintained that having welfare groups involved in developing the new barn standard provided “investment surety”.
“It recognises the long-term investment by the industry. That’s the guarantee in inverted commas, but nothing is for certain in life,” Williams said.
Chestnutt questions bog damage claims
Ulster Farmers’ Union deputy president Victor Chestnutt has raised questions over how the NI Environment Agency (NIEA) illustrates the effect of ammonia emissions on sensitive habitats.
Speaking at Loughry on Tuesday, Chestnutt said that NIEA often use Ballynahone Bog near Maghera as an example of habitat damage resulting from nitrogen deposition.
However, he pointed out that Ballynahone was drained by the Bulrush Peat Company in the late 1980s before the firm started commercial peat extraction at the site.
Not typical
“That bog is not typical of NI bogs. If I was doing a feed trial on dairy cows, I wouldn’t go to my sick cows, but that’s what NIEA is doing with Ballynahone Bog,” Chestnutt maintained.
He said that the vegetation at Ballynahone has recovered significantly in recent months and suggested that damage seen this time last year was due to drought conditions during 2018.
Chestnutt also hit out at Shared Environmental Services, the body that advises NI councils on planning, following a recent policy change which effectively denies planning for most developments in NI.
“We feel this is completely wrong and we will be challenging whatever way we can.”
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