The impact of the outbreak of the Brucellosis Disease in June last year up until now cannot be truly measured in dollar terms.

That is the sentiment of the Director Animal Health and Production Division at the Ministry of Primary Industries, Tomasi Tunabuna as over four hundred cattle were culled over the past seventeen months.

According to the Ministry, a total of 227 dairy farms were infected and 461 cattle had to be culled since the outbreak of the disease in June last year.

Tunabuna said one has to consider the cost of removing the infected cattle from the farms, the market cost of each cattle, also the loss in terms of milk production on a monthly basis as well as the loss of calves the infected cattle could have produced and the loss of employment of the people who used to work on the dairy farms.

Meanwhile, Permanent Secretary Col Mason Smith said that without Government's support the impact could have been worse for the farmers. He adds the industry will bounce back in a few years time.