Grazing cattle exposure to neighbouring herds and badgers in relation to bovine tuberculosis risk

Campbell, Emma; Menzies, F. D.; Byrne, Andrew; Porter, Siobhán; McCormick, Carl; McBride, Kathryn R.; Scantlebury, David; Reid, Neil

doi:10.1016/j.rvsc.2020.09.032

Cited by 12 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…As with the rest of the UK and ROI, farmland fragmentation is a "considerable feature" of Northern Ireland's (NI) agricultural landscape (EC, 2013;NIAO, 2018). Epidemiological investigations into the transmission of cattle diseases in the area allude to highly fragmented and highly interconnected farms (Abernethy et al, 2006;Campbell et al, 2020a), with ample opportunities for contact between cattle on contiguous land parcels (Denny and Wilesmith, 1999;O'Hagan et al, 2016;Campbell et al, 2020b). From a regional perspective, livestock farming forms a significant component of NI's commercial output, and cattle farming alone comprising over 50% of the £2.3 billion agri-food sector (DAERA, 2020).…”

Section: Land Fragmentation In Northern Irelandmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Land Fragmentation Metrics for Cattle Enterprises in Northern Ireland

Milne¹,

Byrne²,

Campbell³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Farm fragmentation is the occurrence of numerous and often discontinuous land parcels associated with a single farm. Farm fragmentation is considered to be a defining feature of Northern Ireland’s (NI) agricultural landscape, influencing agricultural efficiency, productivity, and the spread of livestock diseases. Despite this, the full extent of farm fragmentation in cattle farms is not well understood, and little is known of how farm fragmentation either influences, or is influenced by, different animal production types. This study describes and quantifies farm fragmentation metrics for cattle enterprises in NI, presented separately for dairy and non-dairy production types. We find that 35% of farms consist of five or more fragments, with larger farms associated with greater levels of farm fragmentation, fragment dispersal and contact with contiguous farms. Moreover, this was particularly evident in dairy farms, which were over twice the size of farms associated with non-dairy production types, with twice as many individual land parcels and twice as many fragments. We hypothesise that the difference in farm fragmentation and farm size between dairy and non-dairy production types is associated with the recent expansion of dairy farms after the abolition of the milk quota system in 2015, which may have driven the expansion of dairy farms via the acquisition of land. The high levels of land fragmentation, fragment dispersal and contiguous contact observed in NI cattle farms may also have important implications for agricultural productivity and epidemiology alike. Whilst highly connected pastures could facilitate the dissemination of disease, highly fragmented and parcellised land could also hamper productivity via diseconomies of scale, such as preventing the increase of herd sizes or additionally, adding to farm costs by increasing the complexity of herd management.

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Section: Land Fragmentation In Northern Irelandmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Land Fragmentation Metrics for Cattle Enterprises in Northern Ireland

Milne¹,

Byrne²,

Campbell³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In a study of farms in north-west England, farming units had contact with between one and seventeen neighbouring farms [ 31 ]. In three separate NI-based studies, 79% [ 32 ] and 67% [ 12 ] of fields permitted contact with neighbouring farms, and cattle were found to spend up to 40% of their grazing days beside neighbours [ 33 ]. To try and control contiguous spread, surveillance in NI involves lateral check tests.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating Farm Fragmentation as a Risk Factor for Bovine Tuberculosis in Cattle Herds: A Matched Case-Control Study from Northern Ireland

Milne

Graham

McGrath³

et al. 2022

Pathogens

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Bovine tuberculosis remains a challenging endemic pathogen of cattle in many parts of the globe. Spatial clustering of Mycoacterium bovis molecular types in cattle suggests that local factors are the primary drivers of spread. Northern Ireland’s agricultural landscape is comprised of highly fragmented farms, distributed across spatially discontinuous land parcels, and these highly fragmented farms are thought to facilitate localised spread. We conducted a matched case control study to quantify the risks of bovine tuberculosis breakdown with farm area, farm fragmentation, fragment dispersal, and contact with neighbouring herds. Whilst our results show small but significant increases in breakdown risk associated with each factor, these relationships were strongly confounded with the number of contiguous neighbours with bovine tuberculosis. Our key finding was that every infected neighbour led to an increase in the odds of breakdown by 40% to 50%, and that highly fragmented farms were almost twice as likely to have a bTB positive neighbour compared to nonfragmented farms. Our results suggest that after controlling for herd size, herd type, spatial and temporal factors, farm fragmentation increasingly exposes herds to infection originating from first-order spatial neighbours. Given Northern Ireland’s particularly fragmented landscape, and reliance on short-term leases, our data support the hypothesis that between-herd contiguous spread is a particularly important component of the region’s bovine tuberculosis disease system.

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“…As with the rest of the UK and ROI, farmland fragmentation is a "considerable feature" of NI's agricultural landscape [37,38]. Epidemiological investigations in the region allude to highly fragmented and inter-connected farms consisting of at least 2 to 9 land parcels [39,40], where between 66.8% and 79% of surveyed parcels could permit nose-to-nose contact with cattle on neighbouring farms [41][42][43]. Given the unique nature of farming in NI, it is believed that the different cattle management practices and production systems may be either a feature of, or constrained by, the highly fragmented agricultural landscape in NI.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Land Fragmentation in Northern Irish Cattle Enterprises

Milne

Byrne

Campbell

et al. 2022

Land

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Farmland fragmentation is considered to be a defining feature of Northern Ireland’s (NI) agricultural landscape, influencing agricultural efficiency, productivity, and the spread of livestock diseases. Despite this, the full extent of farmland fragmentation in cattle farms in NI is not well understood, and little is known of how farmland fragmentation either influences, or is influenced by, different animal production types. Here, we describe and quantify farmland fragmentation in cattle farms for all of NI, using GIS processing of land parcel data to associate individual parcels with data on the cattle business associated with the land. We found that 35% of farms consisted of five or more fragments, with dairy farms associated with greater levels of farmland fragmentation, fragment dispersal and contact with contiguous neighbours compared to other production types. The elevated levels of farmland fragmentation in dairy production compared to non-dairy, may be associated with the recent expansion of dairy farms by land acquisition, following the abolition of the milk quota system in 2015. The comparatively high levels of farmland fragmentation observed in NI cattle farms may also have important implications for agricultural productivity and epidemiology alike. Whilst highly connected pastures could facilitate the dissemination of disease, highly fragmented land could also hamper productivity via diseconomies of scale, such as preventing the increase of herd sizes or additionally, adding to farm costs by increasing the complexity of herd management.

show abstract

Grazing cattle exposure to neighbouring herds and badgers in relation to bovine tuberculosis risk

Cited by 12 publications

References 41 publications

Quantifying Land Fragmentation Metrics for Cattle Enterprises in Northern Ireland

Quantifying Land Fragmentation Metrics for Cattle Enterprises in Northern Ireland

Investigating Farm Fragmentation as a Risk Factor for Bovine Tuberculosis in Cattle Herds: A Matched Case-Control Study from Northern Ireland

Quantifying Land Fragmentation in Northern Irish Cattle Enterprises

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