Farmers faced waits of up to three weeks for bluetongue test results this summer, raising fears that Britain's overstretched animal disease surveillance system could struggle to detect future outbreaks.
The NFU warned MPs that mounting pressure on veterinary services and testing facilities was threatening the country's ability to respond to multiple livestock disease emergencies.
Giving evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee on Tuesday (3 November), NFU chief animal health and welfare adviser Catherine McLaughlin raised concerns about gaps in disease detection.
“We are very concerned that our capability just isn’t there to deal with it on several fronts,” she told MPs.
The warning comes amid Britain's worst recorded bluetongue outbreak, with 3,472 premises affected by BTV-3 or an unspecified bluetongue serotype during the 2026–27 season.
According to the latest government figures, 2,917 affected premises are in England, 500 in Wales and 55 in Scotland.
Ms McLaughlin also warned that farmers dealing with widespread bluetongue infections could mistake symptoms of other serious notifiable diseases for the virus, potentially delaying detection.
The scale of the outbreak has exposed weaknesses in testing and reporting, with submissions to the Pirbright Institute rising from around 100 samples a week in mid-July to approximately 150 a day by late July.
Professor Dan Horton, the institute's director of science, told MPs that laboratory turnaround times had increased to between 10 and 12 days.
Around 40% of submissions lacked necessary information, while the prioritisation of pre-movement testing added to delays.
However, Professor Horton maintained that the laboratory had not exceeded its stated testing capacity, with the backlog eventually cleared by the end of August.
The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) expanded testing at its Weybridge laboratories during the outbreak to help manage demand and speed up the delivery of results.
Vaccine availability and uptake also came under scrutiny after supply constraints, financial pressures and uncertainty over effectiveness complicated efforts to protect livestock.
British Veterinary Association president Dr Gwen Rees explained that tight farming margins made preventative vaccination a difficult financial decision, particularly when farmers were uncertain about the immediate disease risk.
She also acknowledged that early vaccination campaigns had struggled to reach farmers effectively, despite considerable efforts to promote vaccine uptake.
Concerns have intensified following the first confirmed detections of Shamonda virus in cattle at two dairy farms in Powys and Shropshire in October.
The emerging midge-borne virus can cause fever, diarrhoea, reduced milk production and reproductive problems in cattle. It is not currently a notifiable disease in Britain.
However, APHA said the discovery demonstrated that existing surveillance and diagnostic systems remained capable of identifying emerging livestock threats.
APHA chief executive Richard Lewis acknowledged broader pressures on the agency's operating model but stressed that safeguards remained in place to identify serious notifiable diseases, including foot-and-mouth disease.
The agency is introducing digital reporting systems and developing permanent outbreak response teams to strengthen its capacity during future emergencies.
A review involving government and industry representatives is expected later in November to identify improvements ahead of the next outbreak season.
With the 2027 midge season approaching, attention is turning to whether faster testing, improved vaccine access and stronger emergency response arrangements can be delivered before livestock disease pressures intensify again.
