A new report confirms a clear link between outbreaks of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) and increased levels of stress within farming households across Northern Ireland.
The scale of this challenge continues to grow as the impact of the disease continues to grow.
Nearly 60% of households surveyed for the report indicated that they had seriously considered switching away from livestock production or moving away from farming entirely, such was the impact that TB was having on their mental health.
talk in Launch the reportUlster Farmers’ Union (UFU) vice-president Glen Cody said everything must be done to support farming families dealing with stress-related issues at present.
He went on to highlight the invaluable work already done by Rural Support in this regard, adding:
“I would warmly encourage everyone to support the work of the charity in any way they can.”
The report, prepared by the Anderson Center, shows that the mental health impacts are significant and interact with the economic pressures caused by the collapse of bTB.
Mental health burden
Evidence from the farmer survey and stakeholder interviews confirms that bTB imposes a significant mental health burden on farmer families.
The results showed that stress and anxiety are particularly acute during periods of testing and collapse.
But broader influences extend beyond these periods. Protracted uncertainty, frequent disruption, and a perceived lack of control are undermining trust within farming families.
These challenges also put pressure on family relationships and reduce farmers’ ability to plan for the future.
These impacts interact with financial pressures to weaken business creation and resilience: particularly in the dairy industry.
The report concludes that bTB represents a major and growing constraint on the performance, profitability and sustainability of agriculture in Northern Ireland.
Moreover, the indirect costs to farmers are large and persistent and not adequately reflected in current policy frameworks.
Where disease incidence increases or decline continues, these costs intensify and become more deeply embedded in agricultural systems.
All of this enhances the scale and urgency of the challenge facing this sector.
Recommendations
The report’s recommendations reflect the increasing burden bTB represents to Northern Ireland’s livestock sectors.
It is worth noting that many of these matters fall outside current policy, support and compensation frameworks.
Meeting this challenge will require moving away from viewing TB primarily as a limited animal health problem, and recognizing it as a constraint on farm performance, environmental efficiency and resilience, the report said.
