NFU Scotland vice president Nigel Miller has blamed Scotland's vulnerability to bluetongue infection on England's poor uptake of the BTV-8 vaccine. He added that Scotland's prospects of avoiding the disease were now entirely determined by policies south of the border. 

What do you think?

For years DEFRA has shown apathy if not downright hostility to agriculture.Scotland needs to have policies in place to deal with any animal health issues as and before they arise,and at all times work on the assumption that DEFRA will be incompetent.

The Scottish government had the option to join in with a UK wide bluetongue policy at the back end of last year and chose not to and has spent the better part of 12 procrastinating on the subject of vaccination. Scotland won't be in any way vulnerable if all its farmers compy with their compulsory vaccination policy, all Scots stock will be protected so it won't matter what happens south of the border.

Its high time NFU Scotland stopped spreading hysteria inducing propoganda and got on with the job at hand, ensuring Scots stock are protected against bluetongue.

top tup:

The Scottish government had the option to join in with a UK wide bluetongue policy at the back end of last year and chose not to and has spent the better part of 12 procrastinating on the subject of vaccination. Scotland won't be in any way vulnerable if all its farmers compy with their compulsory vaccination policy, all Scots stock will be protected so it won't matter what happens south of the border.

Its high time NFU Scotland stopped spreading hysteria inducing propoganda and got on with the job at hand, ensuring Scots stock are protected against bluetongue.

We should all be fine on the BT8 front. Has any one in the UK got a plan on how to deal with BT1 and BT6 when they get imported by some twat. We have at least a year before we will have a vaccine for either type yet people keep bring in stock with BT8 so how long before they bring in the other types.

Sod EU rules close the borders to live animals, the whole point of living on an island is that you have a large bit of water between you and the outside world why don't we use it.