This webinar outlines the practical steps Northern Ireland farmers can take to minimise the risk of anthelmintic resistance.
Anthelmintic Resistance (AR) is becoming widespread throughout the ruminant industries and methods such as Targeted Selective Treatment (TST) and other associated practices can offer the potential to reduce the use of anthelmintics on farm, and in turn reduce the instance of AR.
A European Innovation Partnership (EIP) project, led by AgriSearch, has been trialling the TST method on Northern Ireland ruminant livestock farms with the intention of determining its impact and feasibility. The EIP project group is comprised of three beef farmers, two dairy farmers, two sheep farmers with technical input from Queen’s University, AFBI and AHWNI and is jointly funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the Department of Agriculture, Environmental and Rural Affairs (DAERA).
Results from the first year of the project have been promising and the webinar shared the experience and findings of the project to date. The webinar commenced with an introduction to Anthelmintic Resistance and its importance to the NI agricultural industry from Dr Sam Strain from AHWNI. This was followed with an explanation of TST methods and how they can be used to tackle AR from Professor Eric Morgan at QUB. A summary of the first year results was then provided by his QUB colleague Dr Chris McFarland.
The also featured first hand accounts of using TST approaches on farm from two of the participating farmers in the EIP project – Ian McClelland (Dairy) and Martin Craig (Beef and Sheep). It concluded with an open discussion session which allowed all participants to ask questions. Dr Francis Lively from AFBI joined the panel for the discussion session.
