Scotland must prepare for life with bluetongue

For much of the summer there was hope that Scotland's geography, lower livestock density and cooler climate might slow the northward march of the disease. That argument now looks increasingly threadbare.

Cases have now been confirmed in Aberdeenshire, Angus, South Lanarkshire and Dumfries and Galloway. Bluetongue is no longer a south-west Scotland problem. It is a Scottish problem.

If industry expectations prove correct and the whole country joins a single restricted zone this week, the decision will simply recognise a reality many livestock keepers have already accepted. Bluetongue is here and planning must shift from keeping it out to learning how to manage it.

In some respects, Scotland has an advantage. English farmers were forced to confront bluetongue as the disease spread rapidly across large parts of the country. Scottish producers have had the benefit of seeing what happened elsewhere and, crucially, have several months before the 2027 midge season begins in earnest.

Vaccines are available. Farmers understand the threat. Veterinary advice is widely available. The winter housing period provides an ideal opportunity to vaccinate cattle, while sheep flocks can be incorporated into planned handling programmes. The industry has a chance to prepare rather than react.

That preparation will not come without cost. Vaccination means additional labour and expense. Livestock movements are likely to become increasingly linked to vaccination status and disease controls. Buyers will pay closer attention to the health status of animals they purchase. The days when bluetongue could be dismissed as a problem for farmers hundreds of miles away are over.

But there is also a danger in overstating the challenge.

Bluetongue is not foot-and-mouth disease. It poses no risk to human health and is not spread directly from animal to animal. The industry has a proven tool to reduce the impact of the disease. The real question is what level of risk farmers are willing to accept before next summer.

Another issue from England that Scotland should be determined to keep out is civil service incompetence.

For more than a decade, English farmers have been told that a modern livestock traceability system is just around the corner.

Yet here we are in 2026, with Defra confirming that £237.1 million has already been spent on the Livestock Information Transformation Programme and the replacement cattle service is still not operational. Thanks to reporting by The Scottish Farmer, we now know the latest development is that technical delivery has been brought back in-house by Defra after previously being handled through Livestock Information Ltd.

Ministers insist the move was planned and was 'in line with the programme roadmap'. If so, farmers are entitled to ask a simple question: what exactly has £237 million bought?

What is most striking about Defra's response is not what it says, but what it does not say. There is no clear explanation of why the delivery model changed. No detail on the challenges encountered. No indication of how much of the £237 million was spent specifically on the cattle database project. No assessment of whether any work has ultimately been written off.

At a time when every farming budget is under pressure, that lack of transparency is difficult to defend. Farmers understand that complex technology projects can encounter problems. They do not expect perfection. They do expect honesty.

After spending £237 million and suffering years of delays, trust is now as important as traceability. Defra needs to start rebuilding both.

Westminster cannot justify imposing inheritance tax changes on farming families while simultaneously presiding over the waste of hundreds of millions of pounds on a livestock traceability programme that remains unfinished after more than a decade.