16/03/09
National Milk Laboratories (NML) has been awarded two new contracts, one with Ireland’s largest milk recording organisation Progressive Genetics and the other with the Royal Veterinary College, to carry out disease tests as part of surveillance programmes in dairy and beef cattle.
NML's Hannah Pearse
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As part of a new initiative to improve dairy herd health, Dublin based farmer co-operative Progressive Genetics will use NML to carry out disease tests on milk samples supplied from its herds. This will be an integral part of its new health screening service, known as Progressive Herd Health, that has been developed for its 2500 producers to encourage them to adopt regular screening for key diseases such as IBR, BVD and Johne’s Disease. As part of this service, producers will submit regular milk samples that will be tested by NML in its Wolverhampton laboratory.
“We have completed a pilot test with Progressive to ensure that the logistics are in place and that they are confident we can offer an efficient and cost-effective service,” says NML’s Hannah Pearse.
“Based on the success of the trial, which also included a series of briefings to vets in southern Ireland, Progressive has committed to NML for disease testing and dissemination of results to producers and their vets via the internet for its new Herd Health service.”
Progressive Herd Health supports the Irish Government’s drive to improve the health of dairy herds in the country. And response from Progressive’s producers has been encouraging. “Those producers involved in the pilot study in autumn were encouraged by the service and felt that it gave an accurate indication of the health status of their herd,” says Kevin Meade, Chairman of Progressive Genetics.
“This screening service is a positive step forwards as diseases such as BVD, IBR and Johne’s have the ability to seriously undermine the profitability of dairy farmers,” he adds. “But successful control requires producers to take advantage of the new service in conjunction with their vets in order to access the level of infection in their herds and implement a bio-security plan to eradicate or contain these infectious diseases.”
NML’s second contract is with the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) to carry out disease testing as part of a three year biosecurity project. NML will test blood samples from 50 cows in 120 beef herds for BVD, Lepto, IBR and Johne’s disease, amounting to 18,000 tests in the trial period.
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