News

Farmers worried about recovering their herds

September 18, 2019 7:12 am

Dairy and cattle farmers are worried about recovering their herds when the disease, Bovine Tuberculosis is phased out.

The disease continues to have severe effects on the dairy and cattle industry which have lost hundreds of cows since 2014 with many farmers still trying to recover from their losses.

Fiji Co-operative Dairy Company Limited Chairman Simon Cole says tuberculosis level in cattle have gone down but there is still a threat of slaughtering with the disease still around.

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Meanwhile, Northland Farmers’ Co-operative Chairman Hirday Lakhan says high-quality cattle are hard to come by and it will take longer than expected to restore their herds.

“The animals we lost were high genetic materials and we would like to replace them with equal or better animals, but yeah as I say to replace from within will take 18 to 20 years.”

TB tests are now held every nine months by the Agriculture Ministry and the number of cattle with positive reactions for the disease has dropped.