Last chance to respond to TB consultation
All farmers – whether currently affected by TB or not – should respond to the government’s badger cull consultation before 8 December.
Speaking in Devon last week, DEFRA farm minister Jim Paice said TB was one of the greatest challenges British agriculture has ever faced.
“The farming industry is hugely important, and I believe we have a bright future – as long as we can face up to the challenges we have got now.”
TB cost the taxpayer £63m a year, with more than 25,000 cattle slaughtered unnecessarily last year. “It is an upward trend and we can’t go on like this – it is an animal welfare issue and it is a human welfare issue,” Mr Paice.
“I hope all farmers have read the consultation, and I hope even more people have replied to it, so we have a genuine cross section of responses.
“We all know the bulk of the responses will be opposed to a cull, but it is the quality of the responses that matters.”
He urged all farmers and associated industries – not just livestock producers under TB restriction – to respond to the consultation on a point-by-point basis, to show real understanding of the issues. “It is important that you all get engaged with this.”
Mr Paice said he was 99% certain that a cull would be challenged in a judicial review, and the consultation would cover every avenue to help win that review. “If we lose, culling badgers will be off the agenda, probably forever.”
Richard Haddock, the NFU‘s former livestock board chairman, urged farmers to print off response forms and take them round to their neighbours and trade representatives. He also reminded arable farmers to respond, as they would be directly affected by a declining livestock industry. “If we don’t succeed in getting a cull we will end up with the TB hotspot areas being no-go for bovines, with no compensation, nothing.”
The Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers has echoed the sentiments. “Clearly there is considerable opposition from wildlife groups and others to any attempt to change the status quo,” said RABDF chairman, David Cotton. “Consequently, no progress will be made unless as many farmers as possible express their own thoughts to government on this consultation.”
The association in its own response has agreed to government’s proposals for a package of measures to develop affordable options for a carefully-managed and science-led policy of badger control in areas with high and persistent levels of bovine TB.
Meanwhile the Women’s Food and Farming Union added that winning the public’s hearts and minds would be essential if a badger cull was approved.
The WFU published a series of information leaflets last week, to help explain to the general public why a cull of infected badgers was necessary to eradicate TB. The leaflets are aimed at primary school children, GCSE and A-Level students, and opinion formers.
“This is an attempt to cut through the misinformation and spin in the public arena, in order to appeal directly to consumers to help bring an end to the bovine TB tragedy which is rapidly engulfing the country,” said a WFU spokeswoman. “We have no desire to eradicate badgers but we are committed to eradicating bovine TB,”