The NFU dont want to drop the stick theyve been pursuing for the last decade... But do they really understand the policy, the disease or how it is spread? Despite the latest, northern spread of Bovine TB being attributed to an inefficient testing system and infected cattle, theyre still blithering on that: Controlling badger populations is absolutely necessary if we are going to stop this disease spreading further around the country. And although it is costing the dairy and beef industry with incredibly bad PR, they still believe that: It is a policy that is vital to farming families and their businesses. But the most worrying part of their statement (aside from changing to an opt out system which will hook busy farmers into being legally tied to it) is that: There must be a stand-alone body responsible for gaining licences, resourcing the operations and managing the delivery... There needs to be up-front funding and the process must be simplified. Why is this worrying? Well, firstly because giving the responsibility over to one stand-alone body removes any sense of democracy... OK, Natural England folded to allow the extensions to go ahead, but that was not a unanimous vote and it has opened the doors to criticism and legal debate. One single body, created with the sole purpose of killing badgers will have a very obvious bias and any discussion/debate process will go out of the window... Secondly, how could the process become simplified? From the beginning it was set up to allow marksmen a 6 week period to free-shoot 70% of badgers in a designated area. It has become over complicated now due to the ineptitude of those involved not treating this as a trial; altering the rules and messing with the methodology, instead of rethinking the strategy and starting again has created a complete farce. But simplifying? Of course, what they dont mean is deploying a better trained group to establish a proper population count and creating a more workable methodology... No, what they mean is let any landowner with a gun take matters into their own hands... As we have already learned from past trials and new publications, randomly killing the odd badgers as and when it crosses your path can and will cause perturbation... Inhumanely gassing an entire sett will also free your land of healthy badgers to allow others to recolonise it. And all the while, yet again, the focus is directed at one animal host whose methods of spreading the disease are still not fully accepted, understood and have yet to be scientifically proven. What needs to be done is not easy and cannot be blamed on one source alone... Scapegoating one animal can lead to complacency about other sources and education is still lacking here. This weekend I received a comment from a farmer stating that: I dont think it can be passed through slurry. Who knows? Well, Defra knows... archive.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/farmanimal/diseases/atoz/tb/documents/husbandry_background.pdf Its not a simple process, but it is still a source of infection. Until Defra and the NFU follow a scientific process and identify all variables involved in this disease, Bovine TB will not be eradicated. Until farmers are allowed access to a straight forward guide as to all possible routes of infection and help in prevention, you can continue killing badgers for another 25 years and it wont help your cause one bit... bristol.thebreeze/news/bristols-news/nfu-call-for-badger-cull-to-be-rolled-out-across-south-west/
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 10:45:44 +0000
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