Pigs to be killed to curb ebola

Manila to slaughter 6,000 pigs to stop Ebola spread

The government said 6,000 pigs would be killed, burned and buried as experts sought to determine the source of Ebola-Reston in pigs as well as pig-to-pig and from pig-to-human transmission. -- PHOTO: AFP

MANILA - THE Philippines will slaughter 6,000 pigs at a hog farm north of the capital Manila to prevent the spread of the Ebola-Reston virus, health and farm officials said on Monday.

But the government has lifted a quarantine on a second hog farm after tests by experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and Food and the Agriculture Organisation (FAO) showed no more signs of the disease.

The country has more than 13 million heads of swine and the discovery of Ebola-Reston on two hog farms north of Manila was isolated, the government said.

'There is ongoing viral transmission in Bulacan ... as a precautionary measure, depopulation will be carried out in the Bulacan farm,' Health Secretary Francisco Duque told reporters, referring to the farm just north of Manila.

The government said 6,000 pigs would be killed, burned and buried as experts sought to determine the source of Ebola-Reston in pigs as well as pig-to-pig and from pig-to-human transmission. Mr Duque said 147 human samples have been tested for Ebola, but only six have tested positive. But all six remain healthy, he added.

'Ebola-Reston poses a low risk to human health at this time,' Mr Duque said.

It is the first time the virus has been found outside monkeys and the first time it has been found in pigs. The virus had previously jumped from monkeys to humans but this was the first case of a jump from hogs.

The Ebola-Reston virus was found in the Philippines as early as the late 1980s and 25 people were found infected after contact with sick monkeys. But only one developed flu-like symptoms and later recovered. -- REUTERS

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It's Not a Tumor, It's a Brain Worm

Doctor Surprised to Find a Worm Living Inside a Woman's Brain

By LAUREN COX
ABC News Medical Unit

Nov. 24, 2008—

Late last summer, Rosemary Alvarez of Phoenix thought she had a brain tumor. But on the operating table her doctor discovered something even more unsightly -- a parasitic worm eating her brain.

Alvarez, 37, was first referred to the Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix with balance problems, difficulty swallowing and numbness in her left arm.

An MRI scan revealed a foreign growth at her brain stem that looked just like a brain tumor to Dr. Peter Nakaji, a neurosurgeon at the Barrow Neurological Institute.

"Ones like this that are down in the brain stem are hard to pick out," said Nakaji. "And she was deteriorating rather quickly, so she needed it out."

Yet at a key moment during the operation to remove the fingernail-sized tumor, Nakaji, instead, found a parasite living in her brain, a tapeworm called Taenia solium, to be precise.

"I was actually quite pleased," said Nakaji. "As neurosurgeons, we see a lot of bad things and have to deliver a lot of bad news."

When Alvarez awoke, she heard the good news that she was tumor-free and she would make a full recovery. But she also heard the disturbing news of how the worm got there in the first place.

Nakaji said someone, somewhere, had served her food that was tainted with the feces of a person infected with the pork tapeworm parasite.

"It wasn't that she had poor hygiene, she was just a victim," said Nakaji.

Pork Tapeworms a Small, But Growing Trend

"We've got a lot more of cases of this in the United States now," said Raymond Kuhn, professor of biology and an expert on parasites at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. "Upwards of 20 percent of neurology offices in California have seen it."

The pork tapeworm has plagued people for thousands of years. The parasite, known as cysticercosis, lives in pork tissue, and is likely the reason why Jewish and Muslim dietary laws ban pork.

Kuhn said whether you get a tapeworm in the intestine, or a worm burrowing into your brain can depend on how you consumed the parasite.

How Humans Get Worms

Eat the parasite in tainted meat and you'll end up eating the larvae, called cysts. Kuhn said in that case, a person can only end up with a tapeworm.

"You can eat cysts all day long and it won't get into your brain," said Kuhn. Instead, the larvae go through the stomach and mature in the intestine.

"When it gets down into their small intestine, it latches on, and then it starts growing like an alien," said Kuhn.

Once there, the tapeworm starts feeding and gets to work. A single tapeworm will release 50,000 eggs a day, most of which usually end up in the toilet.

"They can see these little packets pass in their feces," said Kuhn. "And ... sometimes people eat the eggs from feces by accident."

Kuhn said it is then feces-tainted food, and not undercooked pork, that leads to worms burrowing into the brain.

Unlike the cysts, the eggs are able to pass from the stomach into the bloodstream. From there, the eggs may travel and lodge in various parts of the body -- including the muscle, the brain or under the skin -- before maturing into cysts themselves.

According to Kuhn, who has traveled to study this parasite, cysticercosis is a big problem in some parts of Latin America and Mexico where health codes are hard to enforce and people may frequently eat undercooked pork.

As people travel across the border with Mexico for vacation and work, Kuhn said so does the tapeworm. One person infected with a parasite, who also has bad hand washing habits, can infect many others with eggs.

"These eggs can live for three months in formaldehyde," said Kuhn. "You got to think, sometimes, a person is slapping lettuce on your sandwich with a few extra add-ons there."

Getitng the Worms Out

Dr. Christopher Madden, an assistant professor in the University of Texas Southwestern department of neurological surgery in Dallas, has operated on a number of these cysts himself. He said not every worm needs to be surgically removed; those whose location is not an immediate threat to the patient's health can be treated with medications that cause the worms to die.

But when the cysts are in problematic locations, as was the case for Alvarez, an operation is necessary. Fortunately, the long-term prognosis for most patients is positive.

"Most patients we see actually do very well with medicines and/or surgery to take out a large cyst," Madden said.

Alvarez is not alone in accidentally eating tainted food, but Nakaji rarely sees cases so severe that people require surgery. Nakaji said he only removed six or seven worms in neurosurgery this year.

"But lodging in the brain stem is bad luck," he said.

Nakaji said other parts of the brain have more "room" or tissue to expand around a growing cyst. However the brain stem, which is crucial to life, is only the width of a finger or two.

"She could have recovered," said Nakaji. "But if the compression lasted for long enough, she could have been left permanently disabled or dead."

Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures

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Genetically Modified Pigs to be Bred for Organ Transplant Harvesting

NaturalNews) A British lord and fertility researcher has announced plans to breed genetically engineered pigs, for the purpose of harvesting their organs for transplant into humans.

"Pigs' organs are the right size for human transplantation, and they work similarly to human organs," said Lord Winston, head of the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology at Hammersmith Hospital in London.

Health professionals have attempted to transplant organs from animals into humans before, but research in the field dropped off in the late 1990s when early transplant attempts were rejected and attacked by recipients' bodies as foreign tissue. Concerns over the possibility that transplants could facilitate the spread of diseases from animals to humans also contributed to a drop in the field's popularity.

Now Winston and colleagues from Imperial College want to revive the idea by breeding pigs that contain six human genes, in order to decrease the chances that the pigs' organs will be rejected by human bodies. They have formed a company called Atazoa that has successfully created transgenic pig sperm, but their research stalled due to strict British regulations over transgenic animals.

"One of the biggest problems in Britain is the regulatory framework. It's been very difficult to get this sort of animal work going," Winston said.

The researchers initially had to wait 13 months before they were licensed to genetically modify the pigs, then were told that regulations prohibited breeding genetically modified animals on agricultural land.

In response, Atazoa has moved its research to the United States, which has drastically fewer regulations concerning genetic research on animals. The researchers will breed the pigs with genetically modified sperm in Missouri, and hope to produce a fully modified animal within the next two years. After that, they hope to begin clinical trials to demonstrate that the genetically engineered organs are safe for human transplant.

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Philippine authorities assure public it is safe to eat pork

By Channel NewsAsia's Philippine Correspondent Christine Ong | Posted: 27 January 2009 0035 hrs MANILA : The Philippine Health Department is assuring the public that it is safe to eat pork.  This is even though it recently confirmed that a farm worker had been infected with the Ebola virus, from contact with pigs.  Business used to be brisk in the district of La Loma in Quezon City, which is known as the Lechon Capital of the Philippines.  Nena Cesario, Lechon Maker, said: "Business is slow. Not too many people are buying lechon, maybe because of the hard times and they think there is a problem with the pigs."  The Health Department recently announced that a farm worker has been infected with Ebola-Reston antibodies.  It is the first known case of the virus jumping between pigs and humans.  But health officials said there is little immediate health risk.  They also said the farm worker is healthy and has had no serious illness in the past 12 months.  According to the Department of Health, eating pork remains safe, and so most Filipinos still continue to savour the delicious taste of the lechon, especially its crispy and crunchy skin.  Some regular patrons said they cannot resist pigging out.  One of them said: "A lot of people are eating lechon and they are still alive, so I am not afraid to eat it because it is really delicious."  Another added: "As long as there are people selling lechon and eating lechon, I will continue to eat it because it is my favourite."  But authorities are reminding the public to take general precautions in handling and cooking meat.  They also advise them to buy meat only from stalls certified by the National Meat Inspection Service of the Department of Agriculture.  Dr Enrique Tayag, National Epidemiology Center, said: "Do not undercook the meat, you have to cook it adequately so that you kill any viruses or any other bacteria."  The government ban on pork exports is still in effect, while more tests are being done on the other farm workers that may have been exposed to the virus. - CNA/ms Source

MRSA in pigs and pig farmers

http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/01/mrsa_in_pigs_and_pig_farmers.php

Japan praises Irish handling of pork scare

HARRY McGEE

THE JAPANESE government praised the Irish Government for its handling of the discovery of dioxin in Irish pork products, Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith said yesterday.

Mr Smith met his Japanese counterpart, Shigeru Ishiba, yesterday and said the meeting had been very successful. He said opportunities existed to greatly expand Irish food produce to one of the world’s biggest markets.

“[Mr Ishiba] commended us very strongly on the action we took when we had the pork recall incident over dioxin. It was his view and that of his department that we acted very decisively and made the right decisions. We were transparent and open with the public,” Mr Smith told The Irish Times.

Irish pork produce makes up one-quarter of Irish exports to Japan. The overall value of exports bound for Japan is €90 million, of which pork products, mostly frozen, are worth more than €20 million.

He said that following the meeting, there were many opportunities for increasing agricultural trade between the two countries.

“Japan is only 40 per cent self-sufficient in food. It is a country that has a population of 128 million people. We believe there is a great potential to expand the market we have in pork products and in sea food and in dairy products,” Mr Smith said.

The possibility of the Japanese market being reopened for Irish beef was also raised during meetings the Minister held with the ministries of health and agriculture yesterday. Beef from all EU countries is excluded from the Japanese market because of the BSE outbreak of 2000.

Mr Smith said the incidence of BSE was very low in Ireland. In 2008, there were 24 cases in total, down from a high of 355.

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Pork/ham eaters, homosexuals are both unclean

Published on: 1/6/09.

GREETINGS THROUGH our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

What is the difference between pork/ham eaters and homosexuals?

We read in Leviticus 11-7: The swine though he divide the hoof and be clove-footed, yet he cheweth not the cud: he is unclean. What I am saying is that pork/ham eaters are disobeying God.

Romans 1 26-27 says for this cause, God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: Verse 27, And likewise also the men, having the natural use of the woman, burned into their lust, one toward another: men working that which is unseemly: God is looking on, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was met. I am inviting my readers to read the remaining verses.

Quite recently I read in THE NATION newspaper, "Gays to mark seven years". It said members of the United Gays and Lesbians Association of Barbados would mark the seventh anniversary of the group on Sunday with a service at the Church of the Glorious Christ, River Road, St Michael, starting time is 5 p.m.

I am wondering how that service was conducted. Did they sing hymns? How did they pray? Did they have a sermon and where was it taken from? Did they pray and thank our Almighty God for the seven years as a group? And did they ask him to bless them to see many more? I would like that church to read Verse 32 . . . "who knowing the judgement of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them".

Do you see the difference between the pork/ham eaters and the homosexuals, both are disobeying God.

Do we know that it is only one sin in this world and that is disobeying God? But there are many, many, many ways to disobey Him which we call sin. 

Pork/ham eaters say it is sweet, and I believe homosexuals will say it is sweet also. But thank God I know that both are, as the Bible puts it, unclean.

– MERTON KINCH

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Swine industry hopes 2009 brings positive change

By Blair Koch, Ag Weekly correspondent

The pork budget for 2009 was set with zero expectation for growth, said Independent Meat Company CEO Patrick Florence.

In fact, Florence said the nation, Independent Meat included, will probably process less pork than last year. The move comes as customers bypass pork products for cheaper meat as they cut back spending.

“For 2009, we’re looking forward to lower production. It looks like we are going to see, nationally, processing levels at 96 percent of 2008,” he said.

Like every other sector in the nations economy, the swine industry is holding its breath to see if 2009 will turn around the recession or if things get worse.

While emerging markets are there to capitalize on, from Asia to Mexico, the big question is what will happen over the next three or four quarters.

“Price expectations have altered because we’ve had significant economic changes. For six to eight months out, there is some question on the demand side,” Florence said.

Kuna Hog Farmer Brad Thornton doesn’t expect a turnaround soon and slashed his herd size drastically, taking losses now before they get worse, he said.

“Things are changing, around the world, so rapidly, but I don’t think it’s going to get much better until the end of 2010,” Thornton said.

In the meantime, industry officials are trying to promote pork with the USDA’s Agriculture Marketing Service’s Pork Checkoff Program.

The national pork checkoff, implemented in 1986, was designed to strengthen the position of pork and pork products in the marketplace. It is funded by U.S. pork producers and importers who pay 40 cents per $100 of value when swine are sold and when swine or pork products are brought into the United States. Funds collected are used for promotion, research and consumer information programs.

According to information at the National Pork Board Web site www.pork.org, funded by the checkoff, the program has helped increase domestic demand and has introduced pork abroad.

The USDA AMS recently conducted a request for referendum on the program. USDA Conservation Specialist Glenn Patrick explained the referendum will address whether or not producers and importers want the program to continue.

“The Request for Referendum is to see if producers want to continue with the marketing program,” Florence said.

AMS will conduct a referendum on the order if at least 15 percent of the total number of eligible pork producers and importers request it.

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Slaughter of 100,000 pigs gets under way today

SEAN MacCONNELL, Agriculture Correspondent

THE SLAUGHTER and destruction of the 100,000 pigs at the centre of the pork meat contamination scare will begin today.

Plans are also being finalised for the destruction of the 4,000 cattle which were also fed the same feed, the Department of Agriculture confirmed last night.

The announcement came as investigators attempting to trace the source of the oil at the centre of the pig and cattle dioxin scare confirmed that it came from electricity transformers.

The chemical profile of the contaminant was identified as being waste-transformer oil, according to sources close to the investigation.

This may help the environment protection agencies North and South who are investigating the incident with the Garda and the PSNI to find the culprits responsible for the crisis.

The focus of the investigation is now on how the contaminated oil entered the system and ended up being used to convert out-of-date food for cattle and pig ration at the Millstream recycling plant in Co Carlow.

That company has said it had only ever purchased oil from a legitimate supplier in the Republic. That supplier, which has not been named, has not made any public statement.

A Co Tyrone company which supplied oil to the plant for a limited period has said it is not responsible for the contamination and it has passed an audit by the Northern Ireland Environment Protection Agency.

The recall of beef from the 21 beef farms which were known to have used the contaminated feed, is continuing as plans are being put in place to slaughter and destroy the animals on those farms.

The number of animals is not know but will be considerably fewer than the 9,530 cattle originally identified in the Republic on 52 farms.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland had reported on Thursday last four samples from restricted beef herds were above the allowable limit but posed no threat to public health

All these animals, and the 100,000 pigs which were exposed to the feed, will be removed from the food chain and their bodies rendered and incinerated abroad.

The European Commission announced on Friday it would co-finance a disposal scheme for these pigs and pork in a move which will see it make more than €20 million available.

It said it would pay 50 per cent of the cost of buying the animals blocked on farms and for pigmeat stocks held in slaughter houses or still owned by slaughter houses.

The EU also put into place a scheme for buying up 15,000 tonnes of pigmeat in Northern Ireland, a so-called aids to private storage scheme, similar to that already established in the Republic which will take 30,000 tonnes of pigmeat off the market.

The EU contribution to resolving the pigmeat crisis here now stands at almost €36 million and the Government had already put a €180 million package in place to get the factories reopened and the industry moving again.

The dioxin test results from cattle herds in Northern Ireland exposed to the contaminated feed are expected later this week.

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Pig pollution costs farmer £4,000

Published Date: 22 December 2008

A BRIGG area pig farmer is having to find £4,000 to pay for fines and court costs after allowing slurry waste to run off his farm in three different ways, seriously polluting Froghall Drain, Howsham.

James Edward Andrews, trading as Lincolnshire Pigs pleaded guilty to three charges of causing pollution and was fined £1,000 on each with £1,000 costs.

Cotswold Farm in Cadney Road, Howsham is a pig breeding unit which has up to 4,000 pigs and has been operated by Andrews and a partner for the past four years. He admitted to Environment Agency officers that he had no drainage plan for the farm and did not know if there were land drains in the fields.

Mrs Miriam Tordoff, prosecuting, said the pollution had resulted from a combination of poor management and a lack of knowledge of the site’s drainage.


‘The accumulative environmental impact of the discharges was serious, having a major impact on the invertebrate community in Froghall Drain and extending as far as Kettelby Beck. The polluting effect was evident for at least 10 days,’ she said.


There were three separate leaks into the drain; one from an overflow of a storage lagoon, one from the farm’s sewage treatment plant and a third from a land drain.


The Environment Agency was alerted to the first leak on April 9 when someone reported pollution in the Froghall Drain. Liquid pig waste was running into a tributary of the Drain from a trench which officers traced back to the farm.


There they discovered that the trench led from the slurry lagoon which was full to the top and overflowing down a bank and into the tributary. Andrews started to fill in the trench with soil to prevent any more waste getting into the water.


Officers returned to the farm the following day to take more samples and saw that slurry was leaking from a corner of the slurry lagoon and running across a field before getting into the Drain in several places. On a third visit they found the ground saturated from slurry run-off from the farmyard.


While still investigating the first incident on 10 April, Agency officers also found a blue pipe discharging into Froghall Drain. Previous owners were authorised to discharge fully treated sewage liquid through the pipe from a sewage treatment plant but the consent had not been passed to Andrews and partner and the liquid was not of a suitable cleanliness, Mrs Tordoff told the court. ‘The sewage treatment plant was found to be clean and dry inside,’ she said.


On their third visit to the farm officers also discovered an orange pipe (the subject of the third charge) which was also discharging polluted liquid into the tributary. The source of the discharge could not be traced. ‘Knowledge of the site’s drainage could have prevented the discharge,’ said Mrs Tordoff.


Andrews told investigating officers that he relied on farmers taking the sewage effluent to spread on their fields to keep the level in the lagoon down but because of bad weather in March that had not happened.

There was no system in place to deal with the slurry if the lagoon was full and it had never been that full before.

He said that in the future more slurry would be taken out of the lagoon during the previous summer months to make sure it did not fill up. A contingency plan has now been put in place to ensure this incident does not happen again.

Mrs Tordoff told magistrates: ‘Samples showed that all of the discharges were grossly polluting and had a polluting effect on the entire length of the Froghall Drain downstream of the farm to where it meets with Kettleby Beck and including a short stretch of Kettleby Beck.’


After the hearing Environment Agency officer Keith Hughes-Marshall said: ‘Farm slurry is highly polluting and can have a serious impact on river quality, and aquatic life. Slurry should be stored in properly constructed and well maintained lagoons with sufficient storage capacity. This incident could have been avoided with better site management and planning.’


The Environment Agency offers advice on pollution prevention. If farmers do have any concerns about their slurry storage arrangements, they should contact 08708 506 506.




Andrews, trading as Lincolnshire Pigs, pleaded guilty to:


1. Between 8 April 2008 and 19 April 2008 you did cause poisonous, noxious or polluting matter, namely slurry, to enter controlled waters, namely the Froghall Drain at Cotswold Farm, Cadney Road, Howsham, Lincolnshire.


Contrary to section 85(1) and (6) of the Water Resources Act 1991


(SLURRY LAGOON OVERFLOW)


2. Between 9 April 2008 and 19 April 2008 you did cause poisonous, noxious or polluting matter, namely sewage effluent, to enter controlled waters, namely the Froghall Drain at Cotswold Farm, Cadney Road, Howsham, Lincolnshire.


Contrary to section 85(1) and (6) of the Water Resources Act 1991


(BLUE PIPE - STW DISCHARGE)


3. On or about 18 April 2008 you did cause poisonous, noxious or polluting matter, namely organic effluent, to enter controlled waters, namely the Froghall Drain at Cotswold Farm, Cadney Road, Howsham, Lincolnshire.


Contrary to section 85(1) and (6) of the Water Resources Act 1991


(ORANGE PIPE DISCHARGE)

• Last Updated: 22 December 2008 10:00 AM
• Source: Market Rasen Mail
• Location: Market Rasen
• 
  

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Some Austin pork plant workers struggle with disease and its aftermath

by Sea Stachura, Minnesota Public Radio

December 18, 2008

A year after a neurological disease surfaced among workers at a pork plant in Austin, some workers still can't get worker's compensation for their illness. Doctors traced the disease to a mist of pig brains at Quality Pork Processing.

Austin, Minn. — Felicitas can't do much now besides watch TV. She'd rather be working, but the disease doctors say she developed at Quality Pork Processing--or QPP-- makes everything a struggle. Even walking from the living room where her daughter's toys are piled in the corner and to the kitchen where her mother is cooking dinner.

"Now, nothing is the same," she says in Spanish. MPR news translated her comments into English.

Felicitas is in the country illegally, so we've agreed to only use her first name.

The disease originated at the "head table", where workers would stick hoses with compressed air into pigs' skulls to blast out the brains. Felicitas worked on the head table for only a week, but she walked through the area half a dozen times a day for three years.

The pressurized air created an aerosol mist of pig brains. Doctors at the Mayo Clinic and the Health Department found that breathing in the brain matter prompted an auto-immune response in workers' bodies. That means their bodies began to attack the nerves in the arms and legs, and sometimes even the central nervous system. For Felicitas, at first her hands and feet started to go numb.

"I felt horrible. I couldn't walk. If I sat down I had to help myself up with my hands. In order to climb stairs I had to pull myself with both hands," she says.

Felicitas's claim for worker's comp was denied by QPP's insurance company. As a result she can't afford to buy the steroids she needs to manage the disease. Shortly after she renewed her request for worker's compensation, QPP fired her.

She was told the company discovered she was working illegally. QPP confirms that. Courts have ruled that workers can receive workers' compensation regardless of their immigration status.

"Who determines whether or not an individual is a case and who's not from a worker's compensation perspective is completely out of my hands," says Mayo Clinic neurologist Dan Lachance, one of two doctors treating all of the QPP workers.

Lachance says he does not work with QPP's insurance company.

"I have no idea what criteria the people deciding are using even though we are the ones who are defining the disease," he says.

Lachance, along with scientists from the Center for Disease Control and the Minnesota Department of Health recently submitted scientific articles on the disease to a major medical journal. QPP has hired a neurologist from Johns Hopkins University to decide whether a patient qualifies for worker's comp. But Lachance says that neurologist has not been privy to any of the research on the disease or to the patients.

MPR news has spoken with two diagnosed workers who have been unable to get worker's compensation. A worker's compensation lawyer tells MPR, he represents two other workers who have also been denied coverage.

Quality Pork Processing has been open about this disease and fully responsible for its workers, according to company president Kelly Wadding.

"We said anybody has any symptoms or problems even family members, come up tell us about it. We drove people to the doctor's," he says.

Each worker's comp cases is thoroughly reviewed, Wadding says. But the process has taken longer than usual because this is a new disease.

"I think 95 percent of the people who have been diagnosed are covered under worker's comp," he says.

Wadding can't discuss specific cases, and won't go into detail on the criteria for worker's comp. But he will say that Felicitas's case is being re-examined.

That's news to her, and in the meantime she's making do without her medicine.

"There's no point to my life anymore. I feel like a burden to my family. It's not fair to them and it's not fair to me," she says. "It's really hard. The truth is it's really hard to live with this disease. But what can I do?"

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I am shocked this pig crisis can occur in the era of traceability

By Oliver McDonnell

Tuesday December 16 2008

I don't intend to comment on the current state of affairs in our country other than to say that my overriding reaction is one of utter shock and indeed anger.

Shock that such a thing could happen in these days of traceability, and anger that our whole agricultural industry -- including our reputation -- could be placed at indescribable risk by such action.

We have all been thrown into turmoil this past couple of weeks so much so that I must admit that I am finding this diary very hard to write. I just can't get my thoughts together.

However, I have to say that I admire all of our localDepartment of Agriculture staff who have worked practically around the clock and who have adopted a most understanding and friendly approach to farmers in general. They did their investigations efficiently and with the minimum of fuss, while at the same time recognising that none of this is our fault.

Thank God none of this whole sorry business affects us personally. Other than that, I had a load of cattle ready for sale, but these may now wait until after Christmas and until some order is restored to the agricultural industry in general.

Holding on to these cattle for the extra couple of weeks will pose some housing problems for us, insofar as we have planned for cattle coming in and cattle going out at specified times, but it cannot be helped in the circumstances and we will deal with it.

We have empty housing which can be used. It is a bit inconvenient because it is at the far end of the farm, and feed will have to be hauled there which is time consuming.

As we prepare now for the Christmas period and try to organise our work to give ourselves some free time, the roller is working flat out to build a small stock of rolled barley. The lads have given me their Christmas orders too as they also want to ensure that they have sufficient stocks on hand.

Having said this, the roller cost us a small fortune a few weeks ago when it broke down. However, this is the first time it has required major repair. The cost of the spare parts was considerable, but the cost of labour was astronomical and, to my mind, unsustainable.

When I first bought the corn roller some five years ago, the machine cost €13,000 and it will now cost €7,000 to repair. While we have no way of knowing exactly how the labour charges were billed, we worked it out roughly that if two men worked on the machine for two days then we were charged in excess of €115/hour.

Now, while I know that labour charges such as these have become the norm, it is a serious concern. Farmers cannot afford such labour charges and will return to fixing as much as possible themselves in an effort to curtail machinery costs on the farm.

Anyway, despite the huge cost of repairing the machine, I was glad to get it back into action within a couple of days.

Murphy's law applied here. The machine broke down at the worst possible time when the yard was full of cattle, but fortunately we had a couple of days' supply of rolled barley on hand. We feed 80pc of the ration in the form of rolled barley and wheat and so cannot be without this vital machine.

I took a walk out through the tillage fields a few days ago and was heartened to note that the late-sown wheat is doing very well indeed.

We changed our seed this year and are delighted to see the aggression of performance and development despite the difficult sowing conditions.

No spraying has been done as yet but, having said this, there doesn't appear to be a weed problem. However, we are keeping ahead with slug pellets because these little pests are capable of clearing all before them overnight unless halted.

Less than half of our tillage crop is actually sown at this stage. The weather has been terrible this year but the last few weeks of frost have certainly been welcome and are more akin to the winters of our memories.

Housed cattle are healthier in cold weather conditions and we all feel more uplifted when we can stay in the same set of clothes for a whole day without getting soaked. Let us hope that this cold weather is a forerunner to better conditions for the new year so that we can catch up on crop sowing.

Now, more than ever, it has been brought home to us the importance of using natural, home-grown products over which we, as farmers, have some measure of control.

Meantime, there is great excitement on the home front as our 11 grandchildren count down the days to Santa's arrival and, with great interest, inspect the Christmas tree and all the decorations on every visit. It really is a time for children and we are so privileged to be able to enjoy it a second time around.

- Oliver McDonnell

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