Welsh Assembly commits £27m to beating TB

The Welsh Assembly has committed £27m of new money over three years in a bid to eradicate bovine TB.

Elin Jones, the first assembly minister to hold a specific rural affairs portfolio, said she was painfully aware of how crippling the disease was for many farmers, and of the need for government and industry to work together to eradicate it.

Dealing with it cost £11.7m in the last financial year, including compensation for farmers, haulage for slaughter and valuation fees. On current forecasts this cost would rise to around £14m this year.

“Officials are currently working on a programme to manage eradication and I will report in the New Year on how we will deliver on this commitment,” said Ms Jones. “I want to work with stakeholders to both develop and implement measures to eradicate TB, to ensure that new measures are appropriate, practical and most of all effective.”

Outlining the way she would spend the £148m allocated to her ministry out of the assembly’s £14.8bn budget, Ms Jones confirmed she would find £7m to restore funding for Tir Mynydd payments for less favoured area farmers to £29m in 2008, and £25m in future years.

Another £2m would also be made available from 2010 to set up a new entrants’ scheme.

NFU Cymru gave a guarded welcome to the budget plans, saying that the new money for TB eradication was a signal that the assembly was seriously committed to ending the huge unnecessary annual expenditure on control measures.

After an 18-month battle, the union would have preferred to see all the £12m slashed off the Tir Mynydd budget restored to livestock farmers.

Gareth Vaughan, Farmers Union of Wales president, said the minister’s announcement of additional funding was recognition of the desperate need to fund TB eradication. “This is in line with what the FUW has been demanding for some time.”