Bluetongue’s impact on summer shows

Organisers have called on Defra to extend the Bluetongue Zones as soon as possible to ensure this summer’s agricultural shows can go ahead as planned.

Putting their questions to Defra at the Association of Show and Agricultural Organisations spring conference, they described how bluetongue was already affecting preparations. In a straw poll, around 90 per cent of show organisers said they would prefer to see the whole country declared a Bluetongue Zone.

Defra senior policy analyst Andrew Clayton sympathised, but said movement controls would be in place for the summer and would have a ‘huge impact’ on many shows.

He said: “We are coming to the end of the vector-free period and movement controls will be re-introduced.

“There has been talk that stricter controls will be imposed, but that’s not the case – they will be introduced as they were in November before the vector-free period was announced.”

Mr Clayton told delegates that despite the restrictions, there was nothing to stop shows going ahead, but organisers would be limited on what livestock could attend.

Movement restrictions would mean that animals inside the Bluetongue Zones would not be able to attend shows outside the zones. Equally, animals outside the zones would not be able to attend shows inside the zones, resulting in a planning headache for organisers.

Particularly at risk were events on the border of the zones, such as shows in Cornwall and Cheshire that lie at the edge of the Surveillance Zone and the free area.

While movement restrictions and reduced livestock numbers are set to hamper many of this year’s shows, the vaccination strategy and the hope of extending the zones could provide a return to relative normality for 2009.

Under Defra’s vaccination strategy, published this week, the protection zones will be the first to receive vaccine before it can be rolled out to the rest of the country.

Mr Clayton said: “Once there is enough vaccine, the aim is to extend the protection zone bit by bit until eventually the whole country can be vaccinated.

“But that is some way off at the moment and the main priority is to vaccinate in the current protection zones where livestock is at greatest risk.”

He said there were ‘no guarantees’ where the zones would be extended to and decisions would be taken based on risk, extending the zones to areas most likely to be exposed to the virus.

Questions were raised about how attendances would be policed, to ensure that no illegal animal movements occurred.

Mr Clayton said it was the livestock keeper’s responsibility to declare that animal movements were in line with the controls, rather than burdening show secretaries with the onerous task of policing entries.