Cattle Control ‘Trade-off’ Alongside a Badger Cull Not an Option, says NBA
UK - Farmers in the South West are not willing to consider extra cattle controls, even if as part of a deal to secure a badger cull, the National Beef Association’s TB Committee has told Defra officials.The committee met a Defra delegation on Friday. According to its chairman Bill Harper, they refuted recent suggestions made by Defra’s TB Advisory Group that farmers were ‘willing’ to accept further cattle control measures, such as risk-based trading, alongside a badger cull.
Mr Harper sought to dismiss suggestions that farming leaders were willing to engage in a ‘trade-off’, offering extra cattle controls in exchange for a badger cull. “They are not issues that can be traded,” he said. “It misses the whole point that disease is not being carried round the country in cattle. We cannot do any more in terms of cattle controls. They cannot have any more practical benefit on reducing TB, given that the main source of infection is in wildlife,” Mr Harper said.
However, NBA chairman Duff Burrell said there was a need for Government and industry to develop a long-term programme that targeted both cattle and badgers.
“Clean badgers alone won’t get rid of TB. We need a proper plan, part of which is eliminating disease in wildlife but also in cattle to the point where wildlife won’t re-infect cattle and cattle won’t re-infect wildlife.
Source: Farmers Guardian
Further Reading
- Go to our previous news item on this story by clicking here. | |
- Find out more information on Bovine Tuberculosis by clicking here. |