New scheme targets bovine TB on both sides of Irish border

A new £4 million cross-border project will test a joined-up approach to tackling bovine TB in cattle, badgers and local farms on both sides of the Irish border.

Northern Ireland's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has welcomed the funding, which has been allocated from the public sector Transformation Fund.

The money will support a regional bovine TB research programme operating in the Derry City and Strabane area of Northern Ireland and north-east Donegal in the Republic of Ireland.

The initiative is the first regionalised project of its kind on the island of Ireland to focus on wildlife, cattle and people as part of one coordinated package of measures.

It has already secured around £5.6 million from the Irish Government’s Shared Island Fund.

The programme will test whether a coordinated regional approach can help reduce bovine TB incidence and transmission.

For farmers, the work will include enhanced cattle testing, on-farm biosecurity advice and the creation of local eradication partnership groups.

Wildlife measures will focus on reducing infection levels in the local badger population through a Test and Vaccinate or Remove approach, subject to statutory licensing approvals.

This involves capturing badgers, testing them for bovine TB, vaccinating animals that test negative and removing those that test positive.

Cattle measures will include greater use of interferon gamma blood testing in breakdown herds.

The programme will also pilot six-monthly skin testing of cattle and use genotyping analysis to support improved herd breeding management.

Farmers will receive enhanced biosecurity advice delivered on farm by private veterinary practitioners.

Regional eradication partnership groups will also be established with local farmers.

Around 96% of farmers in the area have already given DAERA permission to carry out a badger sett survey on their land.

The survey began in January and forms part of the wider work to understand and manage disease risk in the region.

DAERA Minister Andrew Muir said the allocation of transformation funding was “very welcome”, alongside the money already committed by the Irish Government through the Shared Island Initiative.

He said international experience had shown that “no country has been successful in substantially reducing or eradicating bovine TB without the progression of a regionalisation approach”.

The minister added that such an approach had “not yet been tried on the island of Ireland”.

He said successful delivery of the scheme would help build further evidence to inform future measures within the wider bovine TB Programme.

The initiative marks the first time DAERA and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine have taken a joint approach to bovine TB management in a cross-border area.