Ann & Bob Payne (Handbank Texels) 21st August 2013
On behalf of the Texel Sheep Society, Bob & Anne Payne (Handbank Texel flock) attended the NSA Breed Society Forum. The Forum was held near Edinburgh at the invitation of the Moredun Foundation for Research in Animal Health. The facilities were excellent and as hosts the staff was both welcoming and informative.
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Phil Stocker, CEO of NSA introduced the day with a short report on a recent trade visit to New Zealand (undertaken jointly with representatives from EBLEX and NFU). It had become clear that we need to have a more global view of farming and find ways of working together, as there were many emerging markets which were in danger of being under-supplied – the numbers of lambs produced this year in both UK and NZ are down (in NZ by 4 and 1/2 million) and there is a wide-scale move out of sheep into dairy production, especially on the Canterbury Plains. Yet the China market has tripled over the last few years and NZ meat plants are 30% over-capacity. Nevertheless, more detailed information is passed back to the producers about their meat yield value, such as “value of fore-quarters, value of hind-quarters, and value of loin”.
NSA working for Breed Societies. – areas of involvement have included:-
1. Regulation and Policy issues
2. Technical and Practical Solutions
3. Market opportunities
4. Health and Welfare concerns
5. “Next Generation” – a New Entrants initiative www.nsanextgeneration.org.uk
6. Joint Oversight – with RBST – of the Ovine Semen Archive.
and much, much more. Despite this, there was a disappointingly low representation from Breed Societies at the Forum, and yet their involvement in and contribution to the sheep industry is crucial to its future well-being. NSA would welcome feed-back as to the best way for them to be involved under the new structure, e.g. most regional committees are open to all members, and reps. from Texel Breeders’ Clubs would be welcome along with those from other Breed Societies.
There followed The Big Debate on “Preservation versus Progress”, and a series of excellent presentations by Moredun staff on a variety of different areas of research, amongst them were CLA, OPA and Scrapie.
Dr. Colin McInnis, Head of Vaccines, explained that their task was to “investigate endemic livestock diseases of relevance in Scotland, UK, EU and world-wide”. Their many achievements include:-
- identification of the causes of 18 diseases
- development of vaccines for 11 diseases
- development of treatment strategies for 12 diseases
- operating a surveillance service for 36 diseases
They also engage with stake-holders by exchanging knowledge with scientists, farmers, politicians, vets and the general public. In addition, they publish disease fact sheets, engage with policy makers and hold a series of road-shows throughout the UK. Their vaccine targets for the future include CLA, mastitis and septicaemia. (Past successes include Heptavac-P.) Dr. McInnis went on to remind us that 62% of human pathogens are zoonotic (transmissible from animals) such as e.coli, campylobacter, toxaplasma gondii, cryptosporidiosis, Chlamydia and orf – and 75% of emerging diseases are also zoonotic.
A Tour of the Premises was a fascinating conclusion to the day and demonstrated the scale and modernity of the buildings with excellent facilities to house their 150 staff, including “state of the art” laboratories; pathogen collections; animal accommodation for cattle, sheep and pigs (and sometimes deer and ponies); containment provision; slaughter and incineration facilities. All procedures were carried out with a high level of animal care and bio-security to an impressive degree.
Bob and Anne Payne
