DEFRA TB survey: Farmers and vets have their say

Last summer the Animal Health and Welfare Board for England went beyond the usual channels for developing policy and asked farmers and vets directly for suggestions on what more could be done to eradicate bovine tuberculosis. Here Michael Seals, chairman of the Animal Health and Welfare Board for England, sets out the survey’s results.

Rather than developing advice about TB from afar in Whitehall, I wanted to develop a new way of working and hear directly from people whose lives are affected by the disease. Who better to advise the government on steps to control this terrible disease than the farmers and vets who tackle it every day?

More than 600 of you responded via email, post, in person and online. Thank you to everyone who took the time to contribute. Today we are publishing the results of the Farmers Weekly online survey. We received many excellent suggestions via the survey including: improving the accuracy and fre uency of testing, reducing the testing burden on farm businesses, incentive schemes to financially reward those with excellent biosecurity and better improved advice on sourcing cattle.

Not one of these suggestions in itself will eradicate TB, but put together they can feed into our long-term eradication plan and will help put the brakes on the disease’s spread. Our expert team are now looking at all of your suggestions, in advance of the Animal Health and Welfare Board for England putting advice to ministers early next year.

In the meantime we are continuing our rolling programme of research and development including developing new vaccination options, improved testing arrangements, better on-farm biosecurity and, of course, badger culling will begin next summer.

There will be new challenges for all of us but we must do everything possible to stop the spread of this deadly disease. So thanks again for your help to date – and, I hope, continued input over the coming months and years.

Background

• In Autumn 2012 the AHWBE launched a survey and series of discussion groups on new approaches to tackling bovine tuberculosis.
  
• It covered TB testing, reactor removal and compensation, advice and support, and insurance.
  
• More than 600 people took part through written submissions, four open regional workshops and a five-week online survey.
  
• There were 336 anonymous responses to the online forum hosted by Farmers Weekly Interactive. Of these 26% (89) were from farmers and 19% (63) were from vets.
  
• The majority (184) were from respondents from a diverse range of other backgrounds mostly not related to livestock keeping.
  
• Many expressed support for cattle and badger vaccination, and opposition to badger culling. Suggestions for tightening controls included improving biosecurity, tightening cattle movement controls and testing, tougher penalties for rule-breaking, reduced intensification of farming, and cattle and badger vaccination.

Your views on bovine tuberculosis

Key messages from farmers and vets (45% of respondents)

The key messages from farmers and vets (45% of the total submissions) organised by the uestions as they appeared in the survey.

What could the government and industry do to stop practices that risk spreading bovine TB?

• Trading and movement controls should be strengthened including:
  
• Ensuring that all cattle movements are recorded.
  
• Reducing farm-to-farm sales through auction marts.
  
• Extra checks of movement records (and high fines for non-compliance) in high-risk areas.
  
• Tighter controls of movements between high and low risk areas.
  
• No linked holdings in high risk areas and reducing the time allowed for moving cattle after a pre-movement test (PrMT) to 30 days.

Other measures:

• Accuracy and consistency of testing should be improved and the disease in camelids, outdoor pigs and sheep should be taken more seriously.
  
• Education and communication could encourage better practices, so farmers could make informed decisions about buying from high-risk areas and improve biosecurity.
  
• Incentives and penalties should be used, including heavy penalties for flouting rules and better compensation for those with excellent biosecurity.
  
• The disposal of TB-infected milk should also be given greater consideration, including stopping the disposal into slurry tanks and feeding “waste” milk to calves.

How much responsibility should the government have for TB testing and compensation?

Opinion was divided over the level of responsibility the government should have for compensation and testing.

Reasons why government should bear all of the responsibility were:

• The wildlife vector remains unresolved.
  
• It’s the government’s fault its “inaction has brought us to the current situation”.
  
• Bovine TB is transferable across species (zoonosis) and is therefore a public health and food security issue.
  
• Testing, as a legal obligation should be totally funded by the government.
  
• There should be more incentives for farmers to improve biosecurity and best practice and they should be compensated for good practices.

Areas where government should shoulder less of the burden:

• Livestock keepers who had made “reckless” movements should be held responsible for TB breakdowns. This included a minority of responses stating that compensation should not be paid.
  
• Testing – industry could pay varying levels of contributions, conceding to “more” or “joint” responsibility for testing.
  
• Insurance should be mandatory (one veterinary response).
  
• Compensation is too high and should be offered at 50% of the full amount.

Areas where government should be solely responsible for bTB control:

• Research and development and epidemiology.
  
• Ensuring enforcement, inspection and legal compliance.
  
• Ensuring there are enough vets to carry out testing.
  
• Investing in vaccination and putting resource into monitoring vet performance.

What measures do you want to see in place to reduce the spread of TB?

• Tighter movement controls.
  
• Move towards regionalisation in dealing with the disease.
  
• Pre- and post-movement testing
  
• Stricter movement controls within endemic areas (one veterinary professional response).
  
• Better education of farmers on where to buy-in cattle from.
  
• Better testing regime including:
  
• Compulsory testing and movement reporting of camelids.
  
• Tighter restrictions on cattle movements, particularly when moving cattle into low TB incidence areas.
  
• Pre-movement testing prior to herd dispersals.
  
• Testing improvements, including greater accuracy and frequency of testing.
  
• Introducing an annual or two-year cattle testing programme for the whole of England.
  
• Publishing detailed rules for setting parish testing intervals.

Other measures:

• Quicker removal of reactors.
  
• Encouraging state and private vets to work more closely at the outset of a new breakdown.
  
• More work on biosecurity and separating cattle from wildlife.
  
• Control mixing of stock on “sole occupancy” sites.
  
• Better communication with livestock keepers informing farmers of local risks.
  
• If you could make one change to the way in which TB is managed by the government, what would it be?
  
• Improvements could be made to testing, including introducing annual or two-yearly testing for all herds and improving testing sensitivity (such as reintroducing blood rather than skin testing).
  
• Immediate retests for doubtful cases.
  
• Reduce the days between tests and reduced shutdown periods.
  
• Pre-movement tests of all livestock.
  
• Allow farmers to arrange tests with their own vets.
  
• Tighter movement controls and more information on the cattle they are purchasing (via markets or agents) to protect “clean areas”.
  
• Post-movement testing and regionalisation could also be introduced.

Management of TB could also be reassessed, including:

• Ensure all devolved governments adopt a consistent approach.
  
• Establish a dedicated agency such as one run by vets or an industry-run board to deal exclusively with TB.
  
• Increase local control of TB and risk assessments.
  
• Introduce cattle vaccination.
  
• More efficient removal of reactors.
  
• Compensate farmers for conse uential losses.
  
• False positives should receive higher compensation.
  
• Compensation should reflect loss of income.

How much responsibility should farming have for TB testing and compensation?

• Opinion was divided over the level of responsibility.
  
• Some responded that industry should hold total responsibility for abiding by rules, ensuring testing is carried out well (with ade uate handling facilities), applying good husbandry and biosecurity.
  
• Other responses countered that view arguing that the industry is already bearing the cost of the “labour-intensive testing system”. As the government “imposes this system of TB control, it should pay for the costs”.
  
• Where there are “poor practices” (such as unlawful or negligent activities) farmers should not receive compensation and incur fines for not keeping up-to-date with their testing. Increased responsibility would be considered if industry could take more control over TB policies and control of disease in wildlife.
  
• Testing could be better and more efficiently co-ordinated between local vets and farmers.

Areas where sharing of costs was considered acceptable included:

• Industry paying for routine testing.
  
• Pre-movement tests for animals going to shows.
  
• Some suggested that industry needed to take more responsibility because “illness is a business risk”.

More on this topic

Keep up with the latest news on bovine TB and the badger cull