Archived News

7th July 2008

The DEFRA website says ‘Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is one of the most difficult animal health problems currently facing the farming industry in Great Britain. The Government is committed to tackling the disease’

What is the Government doing to control bTB?  In December 2005 the Government announced new measures in England including the pre-movement testing of cattle and a consultation on the culling of badgers for control of bTB.

Today we await a decision on badger culling from DEFRA Secretary Hilary Benn.  Leaks to the press last week suggest that Benn will say no to a cull.  Why do politicians leak things to the press in advance?  Because they are cowards and can’t face the full brunt of reaction they would have received when making their announcement.  The papers will have written about the speculation for a couple of days and the politicians can hope for something else to take the headlines on the day.

With 28,000 animals culled last year due to TB, this disease is a very serious threat to the livestock industry in this country and it is spreading rapidly from the West.  It is estimated that 40,000 cattle will be killed this year and this is increasing all the time. 

There is no vaccination for bovine TB.  Badgers do transmit TB but as they are a protected species farmers can do little more than lock up food stores.  It is impossible to prevent badgers from entering a food trough out in a field or from making nose to nose contact with cattle and yet the emphasis is on the farmer to protect his livestock from diseasedwalking wildlife.

DEFRA’s official line is that testing and culling cattle is the way to fight this disease, but on the other hand they have produced a CD which provides advice on how to cut the risk of TB spreading .  The CD is being given to farmers trying to fight this disease on their farms. 

Out of the 26 points made, the first 23 are directly about the risk of infection from badgers, one is about pre movement testing and just two points at the end are about cattle-to-cattle transmission: keep cattle away from neighbouring herds (yes, doing this as a matter of course for on farm bio-security) and source bought- in stock carefully and adhere to isolation procedures (again this goes without saying because we wouldn’t put our own herd and our livelihood at risk).

With 16 photos and 8 videos showing badgers entering farm buildings, nose to nose contact with cattle and feeding from troughs it shows that DEFRA is fully aware of the risks posed by badgers transmitting TB to cattle.

Science has shown that 1-2% of herd ‘breakdowns’ is caused by cattle-to-cattle transmission and the remaining 98-99% of bovine TB is brought in by other sources , in other words, badgers.

The DEFRA website has a lot to say about badgers spreading TB

·         Keeping badgers away from stored cattle feed: badgers infected with TB can contaminate feed.

·         Make your farmyard less attractive for badgers: badgers are likely to be attracted to accessible feed and may spread disease to cattle.

·         Be aware of main badger latrines and active setts at pasture: where possible keep cattle away from these high risk areas.

There are many examples of farms where cattle are housed during the winter and have no cases of TB throughout these months, but when cattle go out to grass and mix with badgers in the spring infections occur.

A farming family in Devon were recently interviewed by the Farmers Weekly, here’s an extract of what they said about the suffering of badgers:

"If DEFRA or any animal lover came here and saw these badgers they would think again about a badger cull. The badgers are so sick that they die of TB," he says.

"They are reduced to skin and bone and struggle to breathe. Their claws grow long because they are too weak to dig for food. In the end they just die either because they starve or because the abscesses they get burst and become infected.

"In the long term this whole delay is doing the badger a disservice - it is prolonging the disease and prolonging the suffering,"

They tried to get DEFRA to visit so they could see the suffering for themselves. "But they wouldn't come because they said it wasn't their job to do so."

TB has not reached Surrey as yet, but it is in Sussex.

The badgers on our farm cause devastation to our conservation areas by digging extensively and undermining hedgerows, burying new hedging plants with mountainous piles of soil and up-rooting the remaining young saplings and their tree guards.  They certainly have created an awful mess whilst destroying these ancient boundary banks and I just wonder what else they might destroy in the future.

I urge everyone to watch two short videos of the devastating effect of TB on two separate pedigree herds - http://www.nfuonline.com/x28972.xml

I would like to see these videos on TV instead of adverts and then the message about bovine TB would be understood by thousands.