Tighter rules ‘will protect Scotland’s Tb-free status’

Plans to reduce or withdraw compensation payments for bovine TB reactor cows if movement rules, testing procedures or other regulations had been flouted have been put forward by the Scottish Government.

And a public consultation on such a move – which would bring Scotland into line with measures already taken in England and Wales where TB remains a major problem for both the dairy and beef sectors – was launched yesterday.

With Scotland’s officially tuberculosis free (OFT) status highly prized by the country’s cattle industry, the vast majority of producers abide strictly by the regulations, a fact acknowledged by the Scottish Government which said that the industry had always been keen to work towards maintaining the current low levels of TB in Scotland.

However, south of the Border, the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has already introduced provisions

0 Scotland’s bovine TB status is crucial for all farmers to reduce compensation for those keepers who have failed to carry out TB testing on time and are now consulting on further proposed changes to payment of compensation.

Wales have gone even further and recently introduced an enhanced TB eradication programme which links compensation to good biosecurity, husbandry practices and adherence with the rules, and allows them to reduce compensation across a number of different noncompliance issues.

“We have considered whether there is scope to implement further measures to encourage farmers to follow good farming practices and keep disease out of their herds,” rural economy secretary, Fergus Ewing said as he announced the consultation period yesterday.

And he added that it seemed “only fair and reasonable”thatwhereakeeper had broken the rules they should not then be able to recover the full market value for animals that became diseased and were slaughtered as a result of poor farming practices or noncompliance.

Claiming that the impact of such changes would be minimal to the vast majority of producers who abided by the rules, he added that the changes would also stop Scotland being considered a soft option by unscrupulous traders.