We have all got to wake up to the spin .

DEFRA have now re named the BT zones. Control has been replaced by Protection. The protection becomes surviellance. Control infers a managed approach to eradication through blanket cover vaccination, Protection is not such a specific term . Benn talks of a vaccine bank from which farmers will be able to purchase vaccine. Not so much a managed approach , just a market free for all. I am betting the next move will be to declare BTV8 endemic in the SE EA and will remove its notifiable status. However there is one problem that they can't ignore ,other serotypes of BTV are moving through Europe ,declaring BTV8 endemic would mask any incursions of the other 23 serotypes of BTV that exsist in the world. With unreported different serotypes circulating we really will be in a mess.This scenario is probably some way off and probably beyond the office tenure of Benn Rooker and Shaw so they will probably ignore the advice they are surely getting from experts.

 They constantly bang on about this being an economic disease for the industry to sort out. This is a disease assault on an industry made up of small independent farmers. How can we collectively combat such a thing without a strategic and compulsary plan it cannot be left to individuals to make the decision to vaccinate on the basis of economic benefit(Benn).At present the whole line of thinking seems so full of holes and inconsistancy its difficult to see a way forward.

romneymarsh.

Do I follow you correctly in that there are 23 variations on BT that may well come our way?

If so, I can see what you mean about DEFRA trying, at this early stage to get out of any responsibility for helping thousands of farmers treat the disease.

Peter Wells:

romneymarsh.

Do I follow you correctly in that there are 23 variations on BT that may well come our way?

If so, I can see what you mean about DEFRA trying, at this early stage to get out of any responsibility for helping thousands of farmers treat the disease.

 

They can only do this if the EU declares Bluetongue to be endemic throughout the EU.  The EU are unlikely to do this for all 24 serotypes, although they might for BTV-8

I know we all like to blame everything on DEFRA but this time I think we may be a bit wide of the mark.

Most of what we castigate DEFRA for regarding Bluetongue should really be laid at the door or the EU Agriculture Commission.  In the first place, the EU laid down the guidelines under which the Bluetongue Control Strategy would operate.  Each country had to come up with a strategy which suited it's own situation, but these had to be agreed with the Commission.  The very fact that Bluetongue is a Notifiable Disease is a Commission decision, so any change in its status is not in the power of DEFRA, it can only influence but not determine.

One thing we all know about DEFRA is that they are pretty useless at communication.  On the one hand Hilary Benn is quoted as saying that farmers will be allowed to purchase vaccine from a bank - the implication being that there will be no official vaccination programme.  On the other hand, the feedback from industry stakeholders is that discussions are ongoing about an official vaccination programme in the Protection Zone (formerly Control Zone). 

Perhaps what is envisaged is a formal policy in the PZ with farmers in the SZ allowed to buy vaccine if they wish. I don't know, any more than I know why Benn hasn't bothered to pick up on the confusion and clarify their intentions.

With regard to the burden of cost of the disease, whether caused by infected animals or by movement restrictions, yes, DEFRA are clear, it is an industry economic problem and we are on our own.  This is no different from any other disease caused losses so what do we expect?

If it is an industry economic problem, why bother with restrictions? We get the disease, we deal with it. End of.

I think we're hoping that we suffer restrictions to limit the spread.  We vaccinate next summer in the infected areas.  We hope the Belgians, Dutch, Germans French etc. etc. vaccinate as well - in fact we insist the EU enforces vaccination.  We keep up vaccination in infected areas here and on the continent for a couple of years.  We eradicate the disease (or at least the BTV8 strain) - it has been done before in Spain and Italy. 

That way most of us won't get the disease.  With luck vaccinated stock will be allowed freer movement - at least into the SZ.

That's the way it works with most diseases.  It's a bit different with BTV because of the midge vectors, but generally if there is an outbreak of a notifiable disease, there are movement restrictions (depending on the type of disease these may only impact on the infected herd/flock eg. BTB). 

If control is based upon culling then compensation is paid for animals slaughtered anhd for disuinfection of premises if appropriate.  Whatever the disease nobody ever gets compensation for the effects of the movement restrictions.

We might be suffering the restrictions to limit the spread of BTV8 but it looks like BTV serotype 1 is on its way, it has jumped into France.  See http.//gds18.org/ACTUALITE/ACTUFCO.html.  Sorry haven't worked out how to give a link yet.

 Here...

stockslave:

We might be suffering the restrictions to limit the spread of BTV8 but it looks like BTV serotype 1 is on its way, it has jumped into France.  See http.//gds18.org/ACTUALITE/ACTUFCO.html.  Sorry haven't worked out how to give a link yet.

Thanks Malcolm.

Yes Jacobus, but as we can't stop midge movements we have no hope of preventing disease spread completely. Those of us still suffering in the south east have just been slapped in the face again by the EU and face even more losses under the new export rules. Its shambles and we're beggining to wonder which lunatic will take over the asylum next!

You are right about the suffering though, its endless down here at the moment and its getting difficult to find a reason to carry on farming some days.

Jonathan Long, Livestock Editor, FW

top tup:

Its shambles and we're beggining to wonder which lunatic will take over the asylum next!

Unfortunately, Jonathan, the lunatics, both in the UK and in the EU, affect everything, not just farming. If you look at the poorly equipped army, the bug-ridden NHS, the politically correct driven education system that fails to teach many pupils to read and the undermanned police force - there are difficulties and failings which have not been improved by our political masters during their 10 years of mis-rule. As the public, we are over-taxed and regulated to the point where you can't sell your house without some complex and horribly expensive HIP pack being purchased, you dare not hold community events for fear the Health and Safety police will descend if someone breaks a fingernail and one Government think tank now wants to ban Christmas on the grounds that "equal prominence should be given to other religions"! (They do, however, admit that there may be difficulties in persuading the public to accept this!)

The only consolation I can see is that regulation will get to the point where the whole thing will be spinning so fast it will disappear up its own tubes.

Having helped drag a family property business out of the high interest rate disaster of the 1990's, the only thing I can say is to hang on in there if you can. The alternative, frankly, is to see the south east of the country turned into a tourist theme park. Maybe that is what the Government wants.

Has ANYONE asked the question (or got the answer) - Why Cornwall and not Warwickshire, would it have mattered which ???

Knowing DEFRA it was probably chosen by the throw of a dart or at random of a list of neighbouring counties.

ring voice:

Why Cornwall and not Warwickshire

This, of course, is the batch that has had to undergo prolonged testing.  Now it is finally released apparently it will only do Cornwall and South Wales.  Has it shrunk in the process, or did someone get their sums wrong on how many animals were where?