Farmers and vets have come together to fight the proposed closure of Inverness Veterinary Surveillance centre – a move that would rob livestock farmers across a huge part of Scotland of a vital facility.
More than 40 farmers and vets met in Fairways, Inverness last night (Wednesday, 1 July) to voice their opposition to the proposed closure of the lab, one of the options included in an ongoing SRUC consultation on the future of veterinary disease surveillance in Scotland. The consultation closes on 10 July 2015 and the future of the SRUC-run centres at Inverness and Ayr are under consideration.
Speaking after chairing the meeting, NFU Scotland’s Regional Chairman for the Highlands Jim Whiteford said: “The closure of this facility would be short-sighted and leave a huge area of Scotland without any veterinary lab facilities.
“Farmers would be faced with making use of the limited service in Thurso or taking carcases for post mortem all the way to Inverurie in Aberdeenshire. The sad fact of the matter is that, if left with these choices, farmers would struggle to find the time to make the trip and proper veterinary surveillance and our reputation for animal health would suffer. Can you imagine the sheer practicalities involved in taking a carcase from Skye to Inverurie for examination – a 10-hour round trip?
“Over many years, the team in the Inverness lab have developed a level of experience and local knowledge of farms, estates and coastline that would be an irreplaceable loss to the Highlands if they were to be dispersed to the rest of Scotland. Rather than closure, we urge SRUC to take a long term view, build on the facilities we have, and provide an even better service and higher health status across the Highlands.
“The Highlands is famed for the quality and high health of our livestock. We have been the driver behind several cattle and sheep health schemes and the loss of such facilities and experience puts at risk the good work of the region as a whole. Indeed the very high health standards met by cattle and sheep in the Highlands will have been a factor in the low numbers of animals presented to Inverness for inspection and post mortem. However, that is something that should be recognised and rewarded rather than penalised by the closure of this facility.
“Farmers are not the only beneficiaries of the lab facilities. Others who use the facility in Inverness are looking at the health of wildlife, marine animals, fish, both resident and migratory birds and human health all of which is helped and protected from the work done within the Inverness vet lab. SRUC need to be more open about the contribution that other interests away from livestock farming make to the running costs of the lab.
“Other elements of the SRUC business based at Drummondhill are already earmarked for relocating to the University of the Highlands campus. We firmly believe that, for the good of future livestock production in the region, the veterinary surveillance facilities should be part of that relocation – either to the same campus or to a new out-of-town site. That simple process of relocation may, in itself, stimulate greater use of the facilities.
“We are not alone in that view. The practising vets present at the meeting also believe that the retention of a specialist facility with expert staff is essential as the practicalities of doing in depth on-farm post mortems would be very challenging. The training requirement to get practicing vets up to the levels of expertise required to do meaningful post mortems would be both time and cost prohibitive.”
