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UK exports at risk - Jane King's blog

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UK exports at risk

We've had another leaked story this morning on Bovine TB but this time it has come in from our journalist colleagues in Holland working on their farming daily Agrarisch Dagblad and it is more bad news. 

They are telling us that 27 Dutch farms are under cattle restrictions after calves with bovine tb were imported from the UK at the end of May.   Apparently, the calves were exported from a Uk farm that thought it was TB free but later found it wasn't and notified DEFRA immediately. 

If you can understand the Dutch language, and I can't, then you can pick up a lot more than me from a video interview Agrarisch Dagblad is running on its website right now.   I can just pick up the gist of the headline and caption and they seem to be talking about British veterinary controls being woefully inadequate. It's at moments like this when I wished I had made more effort to learn languages at school.  

Inevitably, the Dutch livestock industry is up in arms as the country has been free from Bovine TB for at least 10 years.  So far, 4000 cows are being investigated and some have already been slaughtered.   The Dutch Beef Association is calling for an import ban and there is speculation that the Belgians will jump on the bandwagon too.

This could not have come at a worst time for the UK livestock sector.  It puts all the focus back on to cattle to cattle transmission of the disease at a time when the pressure should be on culls of infected badgers in hotspot areas.  DEFRA must have known about this problem for at least six to seven weeks and has said nothing, presumably to try to protect the UK industry for as long as is possible.

Our news team have understandably had reservations about putting this story up on our website until we had all the clear facts.   You can see a bald outline of the latest news on fwi.co.uk and more will be forthcoming shortly.   Once again, this has serious repercussions for animal health strategies not just in the Uk but right across Europe.    It makes me query whether a stand off between the Government and industry stakeholders continues to be a good idea following the no badger cull decision.   We need to work together to solve these crises and rebuild confidence - the current impasse helps no one.      

 

   

Published 15 July 2008 13:39 by Jane King | [Edit Post]

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Comments

# re: UK exports at risk @ 15 July 2008 16:04

Jane

This will also be extremely serious for the sheep industry as we were hoping to use the calf ferry to move loads of store sheep into Belgium, France and Holland.

I have had a party of Dutch slaughtermen at Ashford market today looking at finished lambs and trying to plan shipments on a weekly basis.

The costs although prohibitive of doing this appear to still leave the Dutch a margin.

The cost per truck is £2500 just for the 25 mile sea crossing!!

For instance the best lambs are £3.80 per kg. deadweight.

Best Texel x ewes around £75 - £85.

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Frank the wool

# re: UK exports at risk @ 15 July 2008 20:40

It is clear that TB is getting out of control in England and it is also clear that there is no political will in London to eradicate TB.It is time for the Scottish Government to ban all cattle movements from England into Scotland until the situation is resolved.The Scottish livestock industry lost millions of pounds in last years FMD outbreak in England,which was caused by DEFRA incompetence.It is time for Scottish Agriculture to disassociate itself from the UK/GB tag,which with our customers on the European mainland is seen to be nothing but trouble.I think English farmers should be seriously questioning whether to continue producing livestock in a country where the government of the day,and those stretching back to the election of Thatcher,has no interest in agriculture.If I was a Dutch farmer I would be furious that livestock are imported from a country with the apalling track record on animal health which the UK has.This is a very sad day for for an industry which is no longer wanted by Westminster.Every Scottish farmer should be asking his/herself whether their buisness can survive much more of the union with England.

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connached

# re: UK exports at risk @ 16 July 2008 09:58

Connached - I am assuming you are in Scotland and can see where you are coming from. But I do worry about Scotland (and indeed Wales) going its own way on disease control. We are an island and we need to operate as an island -diseases won't be contained by a notional border. The same is true across the water - NI and Ireland should work together on disease control.

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Isabel Davies

# re: UK exports at risk @ 16 July 2008 10:02

As GB tb incidence creeps up to almost 8 per cent of farms affected, a trade ban was always on the cards.

In 2004, after Russia rattled a few cages, paperwork was drawn up, isolating any member state or region of members states'which was causing problems. THe UK and Ireland were named. It is lurking in 'somebody's' drawer.

Where there is no wildlife reservoir of TB many countries, including Holland, have eradicated the disease from their cattle herds with skin test/slaughter, and now rely on slaughterhouse surveillance for control.

That 'TB free' status is achieved at the following level:

* Bovine tuberculosis must be a notifiable disease.

* 99.8 per cent of herds must have ben officially TB free for a period of three years as disclosed by periodic testing to determine the absence of bovine tuberculosis.

*Periodic testing of cattle is not required where a surveillance programme reveals that 99.9 percent of cattle have been in herds officially TB free for at least six years.

So our level of approaching 7 percent and non-policy of not testing every herd annually, combined with the expensive futility of ignoring a known, well documented and highly infectious wildlife reservoir fails on many counts, not least 'we have no policy' (Lord Rooker June 07)

Although better by a mile than England or Wales, even Scotland does not qualify for TB free status either, recording 0.6 percent of herds with TB problems in 2007. Wales had almost 11 percent of herds with TB problems, and England 6.2.

In Defra's published figures for this spring, things are considerably worse.

What is especially galling, is that Hilary Benn must have known about this when he made last week's announcement. Just how big does that lump under the carpet have to be before it trips up a teflon-coated politician?

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MadCow666

# re: UK exports at risk @ 16 July 2008 19:49

Maybe you don't worry about something if you don't eat it?

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the aged clun