Disease vigilance

Good weather has meant cattle and sheep are thriving, with adequate grass and good soil conditions, at least at the time of writing. Equally importantly, prices across the board are at levels that provide the opportunity for profit, assuming that current cattle prices remain stable over the longer term. While production costs have also risen, there is a margin to be made in most livestock enterprises.

However, there is no room for complacency. Weather, over which we have no control, has often spoiled hopes in the past. We can only control the controllable and that leaves us vulnerable to external challenges. The ongoing threats of increased tariffs and trade wars are not in our sphere of influence, apart from ensuring that Irish interests are well explained and protected as far as possible through our membership of the European Union. 

There is another significant challenge that we can, at least to some extent, influence positively. Several animal diseases are rampant across the globe; more critically, in Europe, and as close as our neighbours, the UK. The devastation caused to global pig herds by African swine fever in recent years highlights the ability of a single disease to influence prices, production volumes, and producer incomes. Avian flu is impacting poultry production here and abroad and, by jumping species to infect dairy cows across the United States, has disrupted production and put considerable stress on individual farms affected. The same could happen on this island, putting our dairy industry at risk. With our tradition of grazing cattle seasonally, we may be more vulnerable to cross-infection than the generally confined US herds. Bluetongue has now moved from endemic to epidemic status as it spreads across western Europe. We have strong disease prevention controls in place to prevent ingress by ship or plane. We cannot control the winds so we remain highly vulnerable. Strong easterlies for a prolonged period could render all other phytosanitary controls practically worthless. With foot-and-mouth-disease still spreading in central Europe, there is an ongoing risk that any breach of protocols could endanger Irish and European livestock farming on a devastating scale.

Our reputation as a livestock, meat, and dairy exporting country hinges on maintaining high animal health standards. We are by no means top of the class in terms of disease status. Timelines for total eradication of BVD have come and gone, with the disease still not eliminated. If we don’t make rapid progress on controlling Johne's Disease and ramp up the eradication programme for IBR, our livestock health and food export status will be diminished. 

Our longest running disease control/eradication programme provides an example of how difficult it is to deliver and maintain low disease levels. TB eradication has been a national goal since 1954. Even the dedicated ERAD programme under Dr Liam Downey over three decades ago could not deliver the permanent reduction/eradication results hoped for at the time. The conclusion then was that, without the elimination of all possible disease vectors, complete eradication is unattainable. Key factors include livestock management and movement shortfalls, as well as wildlife carriers. Is TB such an insidious disease, with its infection routes so multifaceted, that total suppression with existing practices is impossible? Without the development of novel technologies, especially vaccines with identifiable markers to differentiate them from the disease itself, no one is deluded enough to think that even more draconian animal movement controls will deliver full eradication. The most that can be hoped for is that the disease can be kept at controllable levels. We are far from there now.