A ground-breaking £220,000 project to tackle sheep scab in Northern Ireland has been officially launched, led by Scotland's Moredun Research Institute.

Alongside the Moredun, members of The Northern Ireland Sheep Scab Group joined with partners Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute and Animal Health and Welfare NI to launch the grassroots initiative at last week's Ulster Wool event.

The project will see farmers, vets and other industry professionals unite to tackle the disease, which has bedevilled the sheep farming community and their flocks for decades. The launch comes after the partnership was awarded a grant by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council as part of its Endemic Diseases of Livestock Initiative.

The £220,000 programme, which starts in July 2022, will be based on Moredun’s experience in their current DEFRA and Rural Development Programme for England-funded sheep scab control project, which aims to improve the control of sheep scab by focussing on clusters of farmers within three hotspot regions of England.

Read more: Moredun leads on control of Sheep Scab

The NI project focusses on four main aspects, which will be used to inform future research, including:

  • Farmer meetings – a series of events bringing farmers and vets together to open discussions involving sharing knowledge and concerns about sheep scab;
  • Funded vet meetings – during which practitioners will be trained to conduct on-farm visits raising awareness of best practice control for sheep scab;
  • On farm visits – where vets will be able to diagnose and treat scab, gathering information about the outbreak and addressing other concerns about flock-health;
  • Data collection and analysis – focussing on the prevalence and distribution of scab, evaluating the costs to the economy, welfare and the environment.

Despite currently being a notifiable disease in Northern Ireland, historically very little research has been undertaken into how scab is spread and more importantly, how it can ultimately be eradicated. Chairperson of The Northern Ireland Sheep Scab Group, Paul Crawford, hopes the project will lay the foundations for Northern Ireland’s first sheep scab eradication programme.

He said: ‘‘Northern Ireland has been lagging behind the rest of the United Kingdom in both research and piloting control strategies for scab. This project will act as a catalyst for change and eventually lead to the creation of a bespoke eradication plan for Northern Ireland.

"Farmers are the driving force behind this initiative and it was reassuring to see so many of them and other industry professionals at the launch. That said, eradicating sheep scab from Northern Ireland will require enormous effort from all parties and the collaborators. There is a reliable blood test available, developed at the Moredun Research Institute, which can detect scab before symptoms appear, and with the combined efforts of scientists, farmers, vets and other industry professionals, one day we will be able to eradicate scab from Northern Ireland and this project is the first step towards achieving that status.’’