The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) Scotland is to host a webinar this week on the topic of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) to help and educate farmers.
The union said the webinar will discuss the veterinary situation for TB in Scotland and highlight the stress and anxiety experienced by those dealing with the impacts of the disease on their herds and enterprises.
It will be held at 7:00p.m on Thursday, March 23, and aims to warn farmers and cattle keepers about the risk it poses to all herds.
“The webinar will put the science into context, explaining what it means for farmers and how we move forward to ensure Scotland’s Officially TB-Free status is maintained,” NFU Scotland said.
The meeting will be chaired by Hugh Fraser, NFU Scotland’s livestock chair, who will present the concerns of the membership and manage questions from the audience.
Veterinary lead at the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), Mick Park, will outline the current veterinary situation for TB in Scotland and what the tests and surveillance results mean for Scotland.
NFU Scotland vice-president, Alasdair McNab, will provide the context of what this means for farmers and how Scotland moves forward to ensure that its TB free status is maintained.
Registering for the event can be done via the NFU Scotland website.
NI TB testing
The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) in Northern Ireland recently said that there will be “a short pause” in TB testing ahead of a new system going live.
The latest stage of DAERA’s new Northern Ireland Food Animal Information System (NIFAIS) is set to launch on Monday, June 12 2023.
It will replace the existing Animal and Public Health Information System (APHIS), which has been in operation since 1998.
DAERA said that this phase brings in all remaining bovine functionality and opens the system up to external stakeholders such as herdkeepers, markets, abattoirs and vets.
This phase marks the end of stage 1 of the project for bovine functionality, with stage 2 planned to go live in late 2024 to cover other non-bovine species.
NIFAIS will eventually fully replace APHIS as the database used by DAERA and its stakeholders.
