Scotland must act to eradicate key cattle disease, farmers are warned

IN LITTLE more than a week, Scotland will take the first mandatory steps in eradicating bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD), a pernicious wasting disease, from the national herd.

Gordon Struth, from the Scottish Government who have put together the eradication plan, told a seminar in Edinburgh that other countries have already begun to tackle BVD and Scotland did not want to be left behind.

This echoed a call from Nigel Miller, NFU Scotland’s president, who had earlier warned that if Scotland did not rise to the challenge, there might be trade defining decisions against this country because Europe was ridding itself of BVD. The Scandinavian countries are already BVD free and Germany Austria and Switzerland are moving in the direction.

In animal health terms, Struth pointed out that BVD acted as a “gateway” to a host of other cattle diseases such as pneumonia.

It has been reckoned that Scottish cattle farmers, both dairy and beef producers, could benefit by up to £80 million in the next decade if the disease can be eradicated.

Meanwhile, it has been calculated that some dairy businesses are currently losing upwards of £18,000 annually as a result of the disease. Some 20 to 25 per cent of all cattle herds in Scotland are believed to have some level of infection.

As from 1 December, mandatory annual screening of herds will take place. This is the second phase in the eradication programme following the subsidised screening of beef herds introduced earlier this year.

The testing will then classify all breeding herds as being either negative or positive depending on the test findings.

The final phase of the programme will see the introduction of bio-security controls.