#tacklingbovinetb

The most recent episode of Channel 4's programme, First Time Farmers, explored the impact of bovine TB.

Watch the full episode here.

The most recent bovine TB statistics show that the disease has caused the slaughter of a further 14,413 cattle in England since the start of this year.

This unacceptable loss illustrates the enormity of the task at hand to bring this disease under control. But it’s not all bad news. We have a comprehensive strategy in place to make England TB free by 2038, which includes stringent cattle controls, measures to help farmers prevent the spread of infection on their farms, an injectable badger vaccination programme and research into cattle and oral badger vaccinations. These latest statistics suggest that by using all of these measures, we may be starting to see an end to the worsening disease picture that has devastated so many herds.  

Farmers in the North and East of England, classed low risk areas for bovine TB, are being advised to request information on the TB history of cattle they buy to reduce the risk of their herds being infected with the disease. This practice, known as risk-based trading (RBT), will give farmers vital information about the animals they are buying and help them to assess and manage the risk of their herds being infected with bovine TB. Since the launch of RBT last November, Defra has provided posters and guidance leaflets to all auction marts in England explaining the importance of risk based trading and what this means for farmers. Before farmers buy stock to add to their herd they should find out the animals? TB history, asking sellers as a minimum for:

The date of the animal’s last pre-movement test, if applicable;

The date of the last routine herd test; and

If the herd has ever had TB and, if it has, when it last came off restrictions.

Farming Minister, George Eustice said: “Introducing new animals to a herd can be a potential disease risk. Farms in the North and East of England are for the most part free of bovine TB and we want to do everything we can to prevent the spread of disease to these parts of the country.

“Risk-based trading will help us do just that. It is an important tool that gives farmers the ability to reduce the risk to their livelihoods from the threat of this terrible disease, which can have a devastating impact on farms and lead to the slaughter of otherwise healthy cattle.”

Michael Seals, Chairman of the Animal Health and Welfare Board for England added: “Providing and receiving this extra information will help farmers to minimise the possibility of a TB breakdown with all its tragic knock on effects - such as having their herd placed under restrictions and the high likelihood that all nearby herds are also subjected to multiple TB tests. “Farmers owe it to themselves and their neighbours to adopt RBT. It is a common sense step which can make a big impact on stopping the spread of bovine TB, and I urge all farmers to take it on board.”

The first meeting of a bovine TB expert group took place earlier this month. We (Defra) have set up the working group to help prepare a biosecurity action plan which will focus on actions that farmers and others in the livestock industry can take to better reduce the risk of bovine TB infecting and spreading within cattle herds.  The group is made up of representatives from the farming industry – both organisations and individuals, as well as others, including representatives from the veterinary profession, livestock auctioneers, government, and experts on various aspects of bovine TB, including wildlife ecology.  The group aims to finalise the action plan in autumn 2014, after which we will focus on working with industry to take forward the agreed work.

A workshop on biosecurity which ran in May showed that there is a lot of interest in this subject and the first meeting of the biosecurity working group in July built on that.  It was clear from the participants’ energy and expertise that there is a real appetite to work with us to help decide what the priorities should be.  As this is such an important element of our overall strategy for tackling TB, we need to help farmers and others work out what will have the biggest impact in terms of reducing their risk of a TB breakdown and, for those unfortunate enough to have had experience of the disease, how to regain disease freedom quickly and hopefully stay free thereafter.

David Barton, a Gloucestershire beef farmer, has been battling bovine TB on his farm for years. 

Last week he invited the NFU on to his farm to film four of his cattle, including his stock bull Ernie, being shot and removed after they had tested positive for bovine TB.

Care for the Wild are claiming the pilot badger culls in 2013 cost £7m. It is misleading to make an assessment of the costs of the pilots at this stage as certain parts of the pilots have not yet been calculated and fully verified. There are also a number of inaccuracies in the figures produced by Care for the Wild, including an incorrect proportion of controlled shooting versus cage trapping and shooting. Care for the Wild claim that only 24% of the badgers culled in the pilots were by controlled shooting, this is a significant underestimate. There is also incorrect use of figures on the benefit of culling in terms of herd breakdowns avoided. For example, a sample 350km2 area is expected to accrue £3.68m in benefits over a 10 year period, not £1.26m as Care for the Wild suggests.

It should be noted that the badger cull was supported by the farming industry as the only method currently available of tackling the disease in wildlife. The industry covered the operational costs of carrying out the cull. Its participation and financial contribution was voluntary – farmers were not compelled to participate.

Regarding the cost of policing the culls, the final police costs of the first year of the pilots are still being calculated. Whilst we recognise and respect individuals’ rights to legitimate, peaceful protest, significant police resources are likely to have been expended on responding to a widespread campaign of criminality and intimidation perpetrated by a handful of individuals. The inflation of police costs in this way cannot be used as an argument to stop trying to tackle the disease in wildlife using the only effective means at our disposal.

The majority of other costs to Defra are one-off costs associated with monitoring of controlled shooting during the first year of the pilots. In ensuring the robustness of this monitoring - hair trapping fieldwork, detailed laboratory post-mortems and night-time field observations were carried out. This work comes at a cost but will not have to be repeated in subsequent years. Therefore offsetting these costs against the number of badgers shot in just the first year of culling is misleading as the majority of these costs will not be incurred again if the culls are rolled out further.