Worrying rise in TB in North Tipp

Farmers throughout North Tipperary are angry and upset over a sharp rise in the level of bovine tuberculosis in cow and cattle herds throughout the riding.

North Tipperary IFA Chairman Baden Powell told The Guardian that the rate of bovine TB infections being recorded locally is one of the highest in the entire State.

Mr Powell said rates of TB in herds in North Tipperary began to increase noticeably in the spring of last year, and have been rising ever since.

“One farmer I know has 130 reactors in a TB test and he does not know when it is going to stop,” said Mr Powell.

Before incidents of the disease started to spiral, a farmer who went down in a test might have been unlucky to find that five or six animals tested for TB. But now it was not unusual to detect 70 reactors in an individual herd, said the local IFA Chairman, who acknowledged that the number of cows in dairy herds had increased significantly over the past decade or so.

Cows and other cattle that have the disease have to be slaughtered, which has caused a lot of upset among many farmers, though the State has a compensation scheme for such losses.

“Many farmers have built up their herds over three to four generations and have a great attachment to their cows and it’s hard for them when their animals have to be slaughtered,” said Mr Powell.

Previously badgers were culled to try to prevent the spread of the disease, but in more recent times the department stance has been to vaccinate these animals. “This has not worked, and it is highly expensive as it costs up to €2,400 to vaccinate a single badger,” said Mr Powell.

Another animal under suspicion for the spread of TD is deer whose numbers have “exploded”, according to Mr Powell.

Billions of euro have been spent by the State on trying to eradicate TB from herds over the past several decades, with mixed results.

Rates of the disease in Irish herds were at their lowest around six years ago, but since then have begun to rise again.

The current spike in the disease was highlighted by RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Show last week.

INDIVIDUAL CASE

Lorrha farmer Declan O’ Meara who was interviewed for the programme said his herd had been free of TB for about 30 years until 2020.

“The last outbreak we had was in 1984 and in 2020 we built a new milking parlour and were targeting to milk about 120 cows and the first time we tested the cows in the new parlour we had 70 reactors,” Declan told the Claire Byrne Show.

“Over the four years we have lost 93 cows and 60 store cattle as well,” Declan revealed.

He said he had sustained significant financial losses due to the resultant decrease in milk yields that resulted from the slaughter of the animals infected with the disease - a rough total of €80,000.

Declan is now at risk of facing the financial burden and emotional trauma of having his entire herd culled and having to start building a new herd.

“There’s an awful lot of TB in the area,” he said. “I have three near neighbours, and between them this year alone they have lost between 150 and 200 animals.”

Declan suspects that the herds were infected initially be wildlife and then spread in to the herds and took hold.

NEW TEST NEEDED?

“We are testing for TB since the 1950s and we’re still using the same test as we did then,” said Declan, who felt the only way to rid the country of the disease was to develop a vaccine for livestock.

In 2015, about 15,000 reactors were taken out of the national herd and this year it is set to increase to as much as 40,000, Declan predicted.

TJ Meagher, Chairman of the IFA Animal Health Committee, said he was planning to go to the UK next month to speak to scientists about possible new measures that could be potentially adopted to eliminate the disease.

NENAGH MEETING

IFA members throughout North Tipperary attended a meeting in the Abbey Court Hotel in Nenagh on Thursday night last, where they raised their concerns in regard to the sharp spike in incidents of the disease. Among those who addressed the meeting was animal health expert, Tomas Burke, who is a senior policy executive with the IFA.

The rise in TB is not just an issue in North Tipperary. Meetings have been held in recent weeks by the IFA to discuss the problem in counties such as Galway and Cavan.

Meanwhile, the Irish Times reported on Thursday last that the substantial increase in the number of cattle herds which have suffered a breakdown of tuberculosis (TB) in the past year is primarily because of the expansion of dairy farming and intensification.

A senior veterinary inspector with the Department of Agriculture  told an Oireachtas committee that 5,906 herds suffered a TB breakdown in the last 12 months, compared to 4,914 in the same period last year.

In his opening statement to the all-party committee on agriculture, Damien Barrett also said that costs of running the TB eradication programme had increased significantly, from €57 million in 2023 to €74 million as of the end of last month, excluding staff costs. He added that the overall costs were on track to increase further in 2025.

Mr Barrett said that data analysis suggested the underlying reasons for the increased incidence were “the expansion of the dairy herd and the resulting increased levels of intensive cattle farming and the increased movement of cattle”.