26 May 2022
A £220,000 initiative to tackle the disease in Northern Ireland has been launched in a joint partnership involving farmers, vets and industry professionals.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
The team behind the sheep scab eradication project - Paul Crawford, Sam Strain (AHWNI), Stewart Burgess (Moredun), Adewale Adenuga (AFBI), Jenny Martin (AHWNI), Naomi Rutherford (AFBI), Auréile Aubry (AFBI).
A £220,000 project involving vets, farmers and industry professionals has been officially launched in Northern Ireland to tackle sheep scab.
The Northern Ireland Sheep Scab Group has joined up with the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI), Animal Health and Welfare NI (AHWNI), and Moredun Research Institute to launch the initiative.
The project was launched following a grant from The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council as part of its endemic diseases in livestock programme.
The sheep scab initiative will start in July and covers:
Paul Crawford, chairman of the Northern Ireland Sheep Scab Group, said: “Northern Ireland has been lagging behind the rest of the United Kingdom in both research and piloting control strategies for decades.
“We hope this project will act as a catalyst for change and eventually lead to the creation of a bespoke eradication plan for Northern Ireland.
“But to get to that stage, we first have to obtain relevant data, which will give us a clearer picture of what is happening on farms across the country, in terms of prevalence, spread and attitudes towards the disease – as well as what needs to change in terms of communication and education, concerning all parties – in order to defeat sheep scab for good, and that is what we hope this project will achieve.”
Stewart Burgess – of the Moredun Research Institute and who is leading the project – said: “I think we can use lessons learned from the pilot Rural Development Programme for England and apply them in a Northern Irish setting.
“The launch was useful in terms of identifying potential barriers and managing expectations for the year ahead. Our aim is to get an honest picture of how sheep scab is perceived, and dealt with by farmers and vets, and what needs to be done to change attitudes, and make sure the tools available are being used by all parties to ensure flocks are scab free now and in the future.’’
