It will cost at least £2 million to replace the dairy research herd at Northern Ireland's Agricultural Research Institute, which has been hit by an outbreak of brucellosis.
The disease was confirmed in the herd at Hillsborough, Co Down last week and the decision has been made to slaughter all 600 cows on the farm.
The institute director, Prof Fred Gordon, said yesterday that years of valuable research conducted at the station would be lost because of the outbreak.
"This is very traumatic for us. We are obviously very disappointed and we are just hoping to salvage some of the projects, but it is inevitable that some of the long-term ones will be lost," he said.
He confirmed that a dis-infection programme was now being put in place at the institute to prevent any possible spread of the disease, which causes cows to abort in early pregnancy.
The disease is also highly contagious among animals and can be passed to humans in the food chain, especially in unpasteurised milk. Brucellosis can also cause pregnant women to miscarry.
It is understood that the disease was found in eight animals which had been purchased by the institute from a prize herd in the North.
The eight animals which had the disease passed it on to a number of the existing herd, and a decision was taken to slaughter the 600 female animals in the 900-strong herd.
The level of infection in Northern herds is low and there has not been a major outbreak of brucellosis for many years.
Some years ago, the largest dairy research herd in the Republic was also slaughtered because an animal with BSE was found in it at Moorepark, Fermoy, Co Cork.