- Location
- Northern Ireland
Guys and girls,
If bovine TB is ever likely to affect your farming business, it would be well worth your while replying to the consultation by tomorrow. You will have to skim through the paper to pick out the six questions/points which require an opinion. I don't have them to hand, but I'm told the best way is to email your response - even brief answers will be useful.
It's public knowledge now that Ulster wildlife have had a campaign running, with a petition, which has had XXXX responses, while the farming industry responses have been weak. This ad came up on my FB news feed the other day.
We currently have an Daera minister who is likely to be the most sympathetic one to farming we may ever see, and the opportunity to leverage a sensible policy outcome won't be higher than it is now. And yet, it's also likely we will stuff ourselves by not responding to the consultation. The minister cannot be expected to argue for things like no reduction in compensation, full market value, effective and thorough culling etc, if we the stakeholders don't ask him to in response to this paper. It is also probably in the interest of the civil service for there not to be a resolution to the TB problem, so there are significant forces against making real progress on this.
Do you support the culling of wildlife vectors, in tandem with the current cattle movement and testing controls, as the only way likely to reduce the incidence of bTB in the countryside?
Do you accept reductions in compensation of culled livestock? Why? (Bearing in mind that many dairy herds in particular are closed, and not responsible for importing TB).
It's also worth noting the coming EU legislation, which will require herds to be free for much longer - possibly up to six months - before being cleared to sell stock. It would be advantageous to have measures in place before we get hit with that one...
If bovine TB is ever likely to affect your farming business, it would be well worth your while replying to the consultation by tomorrow. You will have to skim through the paper to pick out the six questions/points which require an opinion. I don't have them to hand, but I'm told the best way is to email your response - even brief answers will be useful.
It's public knowledge now that Ulster wildlife have had a campaign running, with a petition, which has had XXXX responses, while the farming industry responses have been weak. This ad came up on my FB news feed the other day.
We currently have an Daera minister who is likely to be the most sympathetic one to farming we may ever see, and the opportunity to leverage a sensible policy outcome won't be higher than it is now. And yet, it's also likely we will stuff ourselves by not responding to the consultation. The minister cannot be expected to argue for things like no reduction in compensation, full market value, effective and thorough culling etc, if we the stakeholders don't ask him to in response to this paper. It is also probably in the interest of the civil service for there not to be a resolution to the TB problem, so there are significant forces against making real progress on this.
Do you support the culling of wildlife vectors, in tandem with the current cattle movement and testing controls, as the only way likely to reduce the incidence of bTB in the countryside?
Do you accept reductions in compensation of culled livestock? Why? (Bearing in mind that many dairy herds in particular are closed, and not responsible for importing TB).
It's also worth noting the coming EU legislation, which will require herds to be free for much longer - possibly up to six months - before being cleared to sell stock. It would be advantageous to have measures in place before we get hit with that one...
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