Is the Scottish livestock industry prepared for a foot and mouth outbreak? asks Nigel Miller, NFU Scotland president.
Even contemplating the possibility will send shivers through Scottish livestock producers but given that we are in ‘peace time’ and do not face such a challenge, now is the time to consider our contingency plans.
The aftermath of the catastrophic 2001 outbreak highlighted particular risk factors and some of these issues were still risk factors in 2007 when the FMD virus leaked from Pirbright.
They were: slow identification or diagnosis of disease; value of movement standstills during early phase; risk of repeated onward movements of livestock; sheep traceabilty systems unable to cope with tracing from collection points or markets where re-batching takes place; and poor biosecurity standards on some farms.
Europe’s response included the introduction of sheep EID Europe-wide.
We also saw the introduction of European Contingency plan standards, which requires the consideration of the use of FMD vaccine to support the initial stamping out disease on infected farms and dangerous contacts.
That approach will be reinforced in the near future by the introduction of a faster exit to export status standard for animals post vaccination.
The EU animal health law also outlines the need for producers to take on some responsibility and the need to develop a smarter approach to biosecurity on farm.
The shift of animal health budgets from Defra to the Scottish Government is phased through a continued commitment to shared funding of BCMS and AHVLA at present.
However, there is a shift of emergency funding in disease outbreaks away from the treasury to the EU veterinary fund.
That change means that Scottish policy must fit EU contingency standards if funding is to be drawn down.
European standards and priorities now impact heavily on Scottish producers.
In many ways Scotland’s preparedness for FMD reflects the lessons learned with well-defined contingency plans and significant investment in traceability through Scot EID.
We have full electronic identification of sheep and a 13-day standstill rule to avoid repeated movements and improve biosecurity.
Despite real and justifiable industry hostility to sheep EID, with its inflexible tagging requirements and cross compliance standards, the EID system driven by markets and abattoirs does capture complex moves that were difficult to track on previous systems and gives almost real time movement tracking.
The Scot EID pig traceability system is also a step change in veterinary terms.
Perhaps it is time that farmers got some payback for adopting electronic systems backed by a central database?
The introduction of the 13-day rule stopped repeated movements but also slowed moves to ensure traceability systems were not outpaced.
The original aim was also to bolster farm biosecurity.
Present day sees near real-time reporting on to central databases that no longer require significant pauses in movement.
The introduction of separation agreements and a derogation to allow the sourcing of tups and breeding bulls reduces the biosecurity value of the standstill.
Today a simpler six-day standstill with specific arrangements for tups and bulls could perhaps deliver outcomes equal to the present 13-day rule.
The change to six days can ease compliance and facilitate trade.
Large livestock operations over several holdings are an increasing feature of Scottish production.
In both fast-moving diseases like FMD and slow-moving diseases like TB, these networks of production can generate risk, high cost of disease management, and widen the impact of disease.
The intensive sector already compartmentalises operations or uses a single flow through units to minimise impact and sheltering parts of the operation from disease controls or culling.
That approach could be introduced into the wider livestock sector.