By Violet Brown
A PROMINENT local farmer has said the biggest fear facing the agriculture sector if bluetongue takes hold is the potential loss of export markets.
With North Down at the centre of Ireland’s first bluetongue incident, Kircubbin farmer Sam Chesney said the discovery of two cows from a Bangor herd with the disease was ‘very worrying’ adding ‘it is imperative we get this under control’.
It was a routine test on Friday on two dairy cows that were part of the Clandeboye Estate herd that flagged up the possible presence of bluetongue antibodies in their system.
A 20-kilometre exclusion zone was established around the site, covering the entire North Down constituency and a large part of neighbouring Strangford.
Speaking on Tuesday evening, Mr Chesney, who lives just inside the temporary control zone, said he was able to take beef and lambs for slaughter easily that morning.
“It can be done,” he said. “You just have to think about it a wee bit earlier and download the forms from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) website.”
He said at the moment there was not a big change in lamb or beef prices.
“Farmers don’t panic,” Mr Chesney added. “It hasn’t affected prices across the water where they have had it for one-and-a-half years.”
Stressing that bluetongue posed no risk to humans or to the food chain, he said: “It’s just a very nasty disease for cows, sheep, deer and goats.”
Mr Chesney said farmers could expect a lot more blood testing on farms in the coming weeks.
He explained that animals can become infected by midge bites. “The midges were here a month ago and done their work but hopefully with the cold weather we have been experiencing the bug has been killed.”
He believes DAERA officials are doing their best to keep the situation under control.
“All farmers are monitoring the situation,” he explained. “It is very worrying and is just another thing on top of everything else we are going through.
“Bluetongue affects sheep badly and because of this sheep meat is very scarce in Europe at the moment,” he said. “Almost 50% of all lambs have to go south every week for processing.”
He said the fear is if bluetongue was to take hold in Northern Ireland farmers could lose their export market.
“At present the live trade with the Republic of Ireland is still open”, he said. “If that closes we will be in a different situation – it is imperative we get this under control.”
Going forward, he believes, a lot of farmers will vaccinate their animals. “There are two strains – which one do you vaccinate for? It’ll be another thing farmers have to vaccinate for”.
