The news is just starting to come out about what Wales is planning to do to help stem to tide of TB. This is what we have at the moment and more is on the way.

Here's the minister's statement in full:

STATEMENT

TB Eradication Programme

Bovine TB is an infectious disease which has a devastating impact on the health and welfare of the national cattle herd in Wales.  It is a disease that can be transmitted to humans and to and from other mammals.  There is currently no treatment for infected animals and there is no available vaccine for animals.

Over the past decade the incidence of this disease has increased dramatically, and it has spread further across Wales.  In 2007 7,905 cattle were slaughtered because of bovine TB, compared with less than 700 in 1997.  The cost of compensation has risen from £1.8m in 2000/01 financial year to £15.2m in 2007-08. On present trends, by 2012 it could exceed £30m.   As at 31 December 2007 2,078 or 16% of farms in Wales were under movement restriction due to bovine TB controls.

This acceleration in incidence is unsustainable. Action needs to be taken to protect the future of the dairy and beef industry in Wales and to address the escalating compensation costs of the disease to the public purse.  ‘Managing' the disease via the measures that are currently being applied would be irresponsible and unsustainable, given the forecast future spread of bovine TB.

The One Wales programme for government includes a commitment to pursue vigorously a programme of TB eradication in Wales, backed by an additional £27m over three years and today I will outline our proposed next steps.

There is no single solution to eradicating bovine TB.  Our approach will be comprehensive, which is what the TB inquiry by the Assembly's Rural Development Sub-Committee recommended.  May I take this opportunity to thank the committee for its work.

The implementation of the eradication programme can not be the responsibility of the government alone - the role of the farming industry and the veterinary profession will be crucial.   Only through working in partnership over a sustained period will we have an impact on reducing the incidence of the disease.  

I announced at plenary last month that the Programme will be overseen by the newly formed TB Eradication Programme Board, the Technical Advisory Group and the Animal Health and Welfare Strategy Steering Committee.  The main measures I am proposing are as follows:

Cattle Surveillance and Controls

A key step for the first year will be to establish an additional one-off test of all cattle herds across Wales in order to identify the extent of the infection and to remove diseased animals. This will provide crucial evidence for future decisions on setting appropriate testing regimes and changes to movement controls.  It means testing, approximately, an additional 4,657 or 35% of herds in Wales.  I will also review existing policies in order to improve bovine TB surveillance and controls.  This will include reducing the time it takes to remove reactors from farms. 

Change compensation regime

Action by government alone will not eradicate bovine TB.  I want to reform the compensation regime to encourage herd owners to follow best practice.  By the end of 2008 plans will be published to amend the current system to ensure compensation arrangements encourage herd owners to comply with legal and best practice requirements.  I will also take action to further address the concerns about the abuse to the TB compensation system as highlighted by the report of the National Audit Office in 2003.

Identify and Remove all on-farm sources of infection

Previous studies have already concluded that badgers are a wildlife reservoir of bovine TB in the UK and that they are involved in the transmission of infection to cattle, and vice versa.   The results of the Wales Badger Found Dead survey were consistent with this, because they showed that levels of infection in badgers were highest in Gwent, Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire and other areas of the highest incidence of TB in cattle.

We believe that the most effective measure to address both sources of infection and cross-infection, subject to strict regulation and meeting a number of requirements, would  be a targeted cull of badgers in TB high incidence areas. To take this forward we will prioritise the establishment of an intensive action pilot in an area which has been identified as a TB hotspot.  No final decision has yet been made about a location capable of satisfying these criteria but I anticipate it would be in a defined high incidence area for the disease and subject to strict conditions.  Additional areas will not be considered until the implementation and robust review and a proper evaluation of the cull and the other measures in the intensive action pilot area has been undertaken. 

I will now, in consultation with the Programme Board, the Technical Advisory Group and the Animal Health and Welfare Strategy Steering Group, consider how this should be taken forward.

I will ensure that those welfare and wildlife groups, which are already part of the Strategy Steering Group, will be fully involved in the discussions. 

This is a difficult decision to take and it has not been taken lightly.  I am very aware of the strong views on this issue.  I have also given due consideration to the divergence of scientific and political opinion on these complex animal health and welfare issues for badgers and cattle

That is why I have concluded that subject to ecological reviews, ethical considerations, epidemiological assessments, practical implementation and meeting the relevant legal requirements, these further steps should be taken with a view to eradicating bovine TB in both cattle and wildlife. 

I want to make it absolutely clear that the badger remains a protected species in Wales and the conditions of the Badger Act are firmly in force.  Illegal action will not be tolerated.

On the implementation of a full eradication programme in the intensive action pilot area,  I can also assure you that measures such as surveillance, reactor removal, increased biosecurity, pre movement testing and movement controls will be strengthened to protect against potential re-infection.  At the request of the Environment Minister, there will also be a feasibility study carried out on the reintroduction of healthy badgers to the area at the appropriate time.

Other measures

We will also be taking forward other measures such as the development and promotion of improved husbandry and biosecurity practices to make sure that cattle owners know what to do to reduce the risk of the introduction of the disease onto their farms, or to manage existing disease.  This will include from 2009 the publication of infected farms and the compensation paid.

The Welsh Assembly Government will also actively support the development and trial of bovine TB vaccines for cattle and badgers in Wales in conjunction with the GB vaccination programme. 

We will also be consulting on proposed subordinate legislation to provide powers of entry and TB testing on premises where there are animals which are not cattle.  From July 2008 there will be a consultation on a bovine TB surveillance and control framework for camelids, such as alpacas and llamas.  We need to deal with all sources of infection and keep the clean areas clean.

What I want to see in Wales is healthy cattle and healthy wildlife.  This programme is comprehensive, practical and proportionate - it will tackle this disease head on.  What is at stake here is the health and welfare of our national herd and our wildlife population, and this government is outlining the action that needs to be taken to achieve a situation where both can exist together in a disease-free environment.

And a Q and A about the issue:

http://new.wales.gov.uk/depc/publications/environmentandcountryside/ahw/diseasesurveillancecontrol/bovinetb/faq/bovinetbqanda?lang=en

i think we already knew ' bovine TB is undeniably out of control '

what we didn't know was that elin jones has bigger balls than hilary benn

Johno - I think that has to be the quote of the day!

thanks, i look forward, even more, to getting my FW on friday

Ooos sorry - I may have misled you. I think they have already chosen their quote of the week (not down to me). But I may be able to squeeze you into the letter page for next friday...

From afar it appears that the Welsh and the Scots are a bit more pragmatic in their approach to lifes problems than the English are.  I had to think of the TB problem Saturday afternoon when while fixing fence a very large badger crossed my path.  I thought for a minute he intended to whip me, but finally he shuffled off up the hill.  My guess is this was about the 3rd or 4th badger I have seen in my lifetime, so they are not heavily populated in our parts. 

kansasfarmer:

the Welsh and the Scots are a bit more pragmatic in their approach to lifes problems than the English

It may sound strange coming from an Englishman but I think you are right. One of the chief reasons being that, by and large, the English have, until recent years, felt 'secure' in their own identity and own territory. Consequently, for the past one hundred years, the British political elite, which includes many Scots and Welsh, has focused its engergies on the world at large and assumed that 'England'  would go on as it always appeared to go on.

Their assumptions about 'England' have resulted in the neglect of the English dimension in UK politics, the export of wealth and jobs, and steps by the Labour Party, SNP and Plaid Cwmru towards the breakup of the United Kingdom. (Incidentally, in official maps of the regions of Europe, England is the ONLY country not have have its name mentioned.)

In addition, the political elite has presided over a massive influx of immigrants with different cultures and, in many cases, competing ideologies to those held by the residents of Britain for over a thousand years.

KF. You are right! and it is about time that, in addition to the pragmatism on small issues, the English (and Scots and Welsh) started to get more pragmatic about some of the big issues.

Isabel Davies:

This will include from 2009 the publication of infected farms and the compensation paid.

 

This may be just one sentence, but it look's to me like the Welsh Assembly is going to use the threat of publicising which farms have TB and how much each farmer has been paid in compensation as a means to make farmers take more responsibility for preventing TB coming onto their holdings through non-wildlife means. So, while they talk of wanting to work in partnership with the industry they're still willing to use a stick to beat farmers now and again. Surely the price paid, based in Wales on animal valuations, is a private contract between the Assembly and the farmer and not something for publication unless both parties agree? Mind you I bet they've already got round that one by including a clause in the paperwork saying farmers won't be paid at all unless they agree to publication!!

Meanwhile, the farming unions are praising the Assembly for going for a cull even though its only a pilot cull and will have to be reviewed before any more are sactioned. Moreover the area of the cull will need to meet a stringent set of rules, including I understand having physical - either natural or manmade - barriers. That should narrow down the available options and make it difficult for other culls to be approved in future without similar conditions being met.

I have to question whether the farming unions are really as pleased as they say they are about all this or are just playing the political game and praising it so as to push DEFRA down a similar line in future.

Sadly I think it may be the latter and once again we're caught up in a sea of political spin. Particularly as one leading figure in the NFU was overheard yesterday describing the sitaution and one step forward and two back.

Jonathan Long, Livestock Editor FW 

                                 Did any one listen to Jeremy Vines luchtime programme on radio 2 today? There were people on there who just didn't have a clue what is happening in the countryside.One woman just kept on saying that the TB has nothing to do with badgers, it 's just the farmers been greedy. How on earth can you argue with someone like that who has no knowledge of the work involved to test whole herds if cattle every 60 days once a reactor or incoclusives have been found on farms.

                               Any one who commented on how awful it was to see TB diseased badgers wobbling around farms got shouted out. How anyone can not be in favour of a selective cull in TB hotspots beggars belief.

                              Farmers, people must realise actually do care about wildlife and want to see healthy badgers present in the countryside, but not ones spreading TB to closed herds of cattle.Many herds around here are down with TB and with these  being mainly selling their cattle as stores, it really is damaging to their business'.

                             TB must be eradicated and both the farmers and Defra must work to this end and not pussyfoot around the few who are not affected by it . It will be to the eventual benefit of the badger population if a structured selective cull happens. 

Top tup you are not the only one with concerns about the detail of the announcement. There is an interesting post here on the Bovine TB blog

http://bovinetb.blogspot.com/2008/04/devil-in-detail.html

Since its been a few years now since I worked with cattle and thankfully never had Tb cross my path in any form my answer and question to this major issue is naive, as somebody who has in the past been a former hunt (may i add peacefull one at that) sabeteur and a lover of wildlife, can I ask a simple question.

If the experiment does not erradicate the problem and having no badgers makes no difference to the spread of Tb;will the English farmers still call for the cull of badgers and the Welsh discontinue the with the cull?

Yes I understand the heartache and suffering for ALL plagued by the disease, but again as an industry I feel we do our selves no favours with our public relations, now the welsh have the license to cull badgers can it be done quietly before the country boycotts Welsh products

Bonehead:  I can only speak from personal experience. We had no bought in cattle. A closed herd. We watched bTb creep up towards us at about 5/6 miles a year. It caught up in 2001. Despite all the biosecurity in the world, we suffered - as did our cattle - the devastation of an almost 5 year breakdown involving almost 50 dead cattle over 30 consecutive 60 day tests. Our neighbours fared even worse, losing 2 - 300 over time.

The area was part of the culling 'trial' Reactive zone, which in theory meant that after Tb was confirmed, the wildlife teams would target the badgers responsible and  remove them. The reality was a very slow 'reaction' - 3 years, and then only eight nights with cage traps. This succeeded in breaking up an already infected badger population and spreading disease. It showed us what NOT to do.

You ask what happens if the Welsh pilot study doesn't work. There is no need for a pilot study at all. Past clearances have been very successful both on large or small scale, providing they were thorough clearances. There is absolutely no doubt that ignoring endemic disease in parts of the badger population,  while having an annual cull of tested sentinel cattle reactors has to be a no-brainer. Even Bradshaw said (Hansard) that no other country had eradicated bTb from its cattle herds while leaving a maintenance reserrtvoir in wildlife. He also told us, that in the absence of a wildlife reservoir, all other countries had either eradicated or had a policy to eradicate tuberculosis using just the skin test.

When badgers were removed throughly over a 6 month period in Thornbury, Glos., in the early 1980's, there was no cattle reactors for the following 12 years, by which time other (clean) badgers had repopulated the area. When asked what other measures had taken place apart from a thorough clearance of infected badgers, Bradshaw replied that "no other contemporaneous change was identified that could have have accounted for the reduction in Tb incidence within the area" (Hansard. 24th March 2004: Col 824W) [157949]

Conversely in Ireland in the late 1980's and West Cornwall (early 1970's) fierce cattle measures including herd slaughter, cohort slaughter, no markets and only movements under license were tried. They failed. Totally and utterly failed. Wrong target.

The public are not being told the whole story. Tb is not about badgers and cattle, but is a statutory responsibility of government to control as a Grade 3 zoonosis affecting all mammals. Spillover from the amount of bacteria plastering the countryside is increasingly affecting other species. Tb has now been recorded in domestic cats, dogs, free range pigs, sheep, alpaca and llamas and companion cattle. Regularly tested cattle herds are screaming their message - and being shot for their efforts.

In the mid 1980's GB had less than 100 herds affected by Tb and culled 686 cattle. We were so close to eradication. Last year, after 20 years prevarication and sanitation of badger control policy, culminating in 10 years of total abandonment of any policy, GB recorded 6532 herds under restriction, and culled over 28,000 cattle. The excuses for inaction have been nothing if not imaginative. 

Boycotting food is not going to be an option in the near future. Food is going to become short. This country cannot afford white papers into a balance of payments deficits on food imports, while consigning 28,000 cattle to the scrap heap, together with their unborn calves, their milking potential, exellent beef and superior genetics. As a country we have become used to having Mr.Tesco provide. But as countries across the world tighten their exports to quieten unrest at home, those supplies will shrink. This has already begun with rice, wheat, maize and soya.

And it is absolutely no use preaching biosecurity to a farmer who has been there, done that - and still cost the taxpayer a small fortune in extra testing, haulage, slaughter, postmortems, sampling and paperwork. It is impossible to keep infected badgers and cattle apart. You can minimise transmission opportunities, but it gets you in the end - as we found to our cost.

This disease has created a beneficial crisis. Too many are on its bandwagon and it has to stop before GB Ltd. is faced with another ban on its produce. Tb free trading level is 0.02 % herds affected. Many countries achieve that. We had 7.6% of our herds affected in 2007. 

Your patch, Staffs. recorded 11.2 % of herds under restriction. 

666 while i agree with much of what you have said, i disagree with the following: 

MadCow666:

Boycotting food is not going to be an option in the near future.  

The sooner these people boycott food the better, and if they boycott water aswell, excellent!

Tarquin: Like it.

Water I think will be the limiter /driver of food production in the future. China has buggered up  polluted and diverted the Yangtse into industrial use, and after a fierce snow and frost period, lost many crops and livestock and is now facing disease in its wheat. Consequences, it is hoovering up global supplies of just about every commodity. And with a surplus of $260 billion last year - it can, because it can pay up front.

My point to Bonehead was that boycotting 'Welsh' food to protect the sensibilities of those who seek to keep tuberculous badgers in circulation may not be an option in the near future. It is a luxury only available to those with full bellies and does nothing to prevent the spillover (already happening) into other species.

 My point is after reading madcows imformative case, which appears more than accurate, and i am now convinced of by the way, thank you, is now why as an industry work at getting these facts across and unemotionally, and not just blart on as all i seem to hear is farmers complaining and shouting in the press and not facts as madcow has presented to me.

Many of friends who are not in the industry just seem to think of us farmers with nothing to do but murder in the countryside unless it suits us not to... NFU take note...

bonehead:

 My point is after reading madcows imformative case, which appears more than accurate, and i am now convinced of by the way, thank you, is now why as an industry work at getting these facts across and unemotionally, and not just blart on as all i seem to hear is farmers complaining and shouting in the press and not facts as madcow has presented to me.

Many of friends who are not in the industry just seem to think of us farmers with nothing to do but murder in the countryside unless it suits us not to... NFU take note...

Agree Bonehead. Which is why, with exceptional help from an extraordinarily diligent and learned co - editor (epidemiologist),  we started the tb blog. Some of the contributers had 'closed herds': all were on annual testing. Some are very large scale, but the smallest just 20 organic cattle on 80 beautiful acres in the Peak District National Park. Most of us had experienced prolonged Tb breakdowns (several years) in those herds.

The PR machine which is the Badger Trust, is run by an ex media spin doctor who uses anthropomorthic claptrap to stir up his troops and a gullible public. Against that farmers saying 'We want to cull badgers over thousands of acres' or 'we hate slaughtering cattle, but if we get more compensation, we'll roll over' misses the point, I think and weakens the argument. Tuberculosis is a killer. It has been allowed to become endemic in a species of wildlife which has been elevated to cult status and whose sillouette adorns many collecting boxes which regularly rattle under public noses.

This species equals votes - and lobby money. The badger's ultimate 'protection',  has created its own momentum as an industry in itself.

Lawson is not invincible. Many of his, and John Bourne's so-called facts are either deliberate misquotes or culled from computer models based on very spurious and simplistic raw data. We have tried in a small way to cut through this, and also present the badger's side of things. Tuberculosis is not pretty.

http://bovinetb.blogspot.com/2007/03/one-cannot-tell-sick-badger.html

and 

http://bovinetb.blogspot.com/2006/02/badgers-dont-suffer-from-tb.html

Thankyou for your comments, Bonehead. Appreciated.

M.

MadCow666:

This species equals votes - and lobby money

I really do wonder if the badger vote is as big as the badger trust would like us to believe

I read somewhere that 0.07% of the public voted against a cull