Halt to all routine farm inspections

The move comes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and is part of the wider effort to reduce the spread of the virus. It also takes pressure off the agri-food sector, which is working extremely hard to ensure the food supply chain keeps moving.

All routine farm inspections in the areas of the Environment, EU Area Based Scheme, Agrifood and veterinary work, will be paused until 30 April.

However essential inspections such as Public Health Risk Sampling, Brucellosis and bTb Surveillance, will continue, where possible.

Minister Poots said: “As a result of the COVID19 pandemic, we need to take every reasonable step to protect our customers. We must assess our current work load and look at what is absolutely critical to keep food moving, protect animal welfare and maintain disease control.

“Pausing routine inspections in the short term is necessary to protect farmers and staff and it ensures we can direct the Department’s resources in the best way.”

“It also minimises disruption and provides certainty for farmers at a very difficult time.

“These are exceptional times and our approach must also be exceptional. We won’t get another chance to flatten the COVID-19 curve – we must get this right, right now. I trust that the farming and environment sectors will welcome this news and we continue to work with our stakeholders.”

Where it has been reported or suspected that there has been, or there is likely to be, potential for a significant impact on public health, animal health or pollution of the environment, the pausing of inspections will not apply. In those cases DAERA staff may undertake site inspections on farms (or elsewhere) to assess and resolve any issues.

Inspections paused:

NIEA

- Planned inspections for SMR1 (nitrates and phosphates)

- Inspections for SMR2 (Wild Birds) and SMR3 (Semi-natural Habitats)

EU Area Based Schemes Inspections

- Rapid Field Visits (RFVs) for the Basic Payment Scheme

- Hedge Mitigation inspections

- New Business ID inspections

- Inspections for the Farm Business Improvement Scheme-Capital Tier 2 grant payments

Veterinary inspections

- Routine Inspections –These include animal welfare, cross-compliance, cattle identification inspections, sheep identification inspections and enforcement inspections. The only exceptions would be reactive inspections, if absolutely necessary, to investigate serious animal welfare incidents or serious animal health breaches (for example bovine TB fraud)

- Scheduled Official Control inspections

- Other Animal Disease Surveillance - including; post import sampling of GB sheep for Maedi-Visna and the scrapie monitoring scheme for sheep

Inspections continuing;

- bTB Surveillance – http://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/news/department-confirms-position-farm-inspections-and-testing

- Brucellosis and all suspect epizootic disease cases on farm, such as Foot-and-Mouth, Avian Influenza, Bluetongue etc. will continue to be investigated

- Public health risk sampling

- Environmental Farming Scheme inspections

The position will be kept under review as the situation develops and a further announcement on routine inspections will be taken by 30 April 2020.

The Department is also considering alternative ways of working, in some cases this could be making greater use of imagery, considering different types of evidence that customers can provide, or to look at options which reduce face to face interaction.

Minister Poots added: “I also want to use the time to identify if there are better and smarter alternative ways of undertaking routine inspections which could also help protect farmers and staff going forward.

“The overall approach and proposals to pause inspections is generally in line and consistent with what is happening in other jurisdictions within the UK, for many of their routine inspection programmes. We will of course keep all these steps under review.”

Health advice and information on government services is available at: www.publichealth.hscni.net/news/covid-19-coronavirus and www.nidirect.gov.uk/coronavirus

Meanwhile, The Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) says DAERA have confirmed that farmers do not have to carry out tuberculosis (TB) testing during the COVID-19 outbreak if they have health concerns. In the last number of days, the UFU has been inundated by calls from members who are extremely vulnerable to the illness or have family members in the high-risk category. Numerous farmers are self-isolating and are apprehensive about TB testing being carried out due to the perceived transmission risk that the test would pose. The UFU communicated these concerns and DAERA have taken these on board.

In support of this DAERA Minister Edwin Poots, announced that cross compliance penalties would not occur for late TB tests associated with COVID-19 and restrictions on the movement of animals direct to slaughter from herds with overdue tests, have been suspended.

Commenting on DAERA’s TB testing announcement, UFU deputy president David Brown said: “The UFU office has been inundated by calls from farmers who are extremely concerned about the risk of COVID-19 transmission during TB testing. The Minister has shown his support for our farmers by reassuring them that they do not have to carry out TB testing if they have health concerns. If they cannot arrange for an alternative person to present their animals for a TB test, they can reschedule without worrying about the implications of the test being overdue. DAERA will not refer producers with an overdue TB test because of COVID-19 for a cross compliance breach and have relaxed restrictions on animals from herds with overdue tests moving directly to slaughter. Herd restrictions on overdue animals moving from herd to herd will remain in place to prevent the spread of TB to other herds throughout Northern Ireland.

“There are numerous UFU members who want to test livestock to clear the disease from their herds and have the test scheduled because they want it done before summer grazing. Enabling TB testing to continue where farmers are supportive of it, will help to maintain the integrity of the food chain.”

Where producers do wish to continue with their TB test, we would advise them to follow the current medical advice and maintain appropriate social distancing measures (two metres) at all costs.