Website Content

Jump to footer

Badger cull is delayed a year

THIS IS CORNWALL
10 June  2011
Western Morning News Farming Editor

Editorial comment: A year's delay will surely show a further decline in infections and the need for any cull.

Farmers will have to wait at least until next year for a badger cull to combat the spread of bovine TB through their Westcountry herds, Farming Minister Jim Paice announced yesterday.

Badger​
Badger

Speaking at the opening day of the Royal Cornwall Show, he told the Western Morning News: "At this stage in the year we cannot expect a cull of badgers until the summer of next year at the earliest."

Mr Paice said that even though an announcement about a cull and how it could be carried out was likely to be made in the first part of July, it would be 2012 before it could be implemented.

He said legal challenges were bound to be made by organisations within the environmentalists lobby, including the Badger Trust, delaying any possible action.

"We shall need to provide time for at least one judicial review, which is inevitable," said Mr Paice.

"Then Natural England will need time to process all the licence to cull applications. So realistically we are looking at the summer of next year before any cull will get under way."

National Farmers' Union deputy president Maurig Raymond said he was deeply frustrated by the news.

"We have lost another year in trying to combat this dreadful disease," he said. "Our top priority now is to make sure we get the right announcement from the Government in favour of the farming industry and for all those livestock farmers whose herds are under movement restriction because of bovine TB."

Newton Abbot dairy farmer Anthony Rew said the postponement was "terribly disappointing".

He said the Government had failed to grasp the mettle in making no earlier announcement about a cull. "This disease needs to be tackled now before it does anymore damage," he said.

Earlier, in the show's opening keynote speech, Mr Paice told a packed audience in the Country Land and Business Association marquee that the Government's consultation period on a possible badger cull had produced a whole raft of serious issues – and the cull of badgers in Wales had seen the Welsh Assembly in and out of court regularly on complicated legal challenges.

"We are having to make absolutely sure we get it right – and that's why it has taken such a long time," he said. "Because we only have this one opportunity.

"If a cull does go ahead, once it has started we have to ensure that farmers don't just give up on it after one year, because the process needs to run for four years," he stressed. "But we really are getting close to a resolution and we shall make an announcement about a cull before Parliament rises for the summer recess at the end of the third week in July."

For years, farmers have sought a cull of badgers which are blamed for spreading the disease among cattle herds.

In a wide-ranging speech, Mr Paice highlighted several other issues among "very many" that needed tackling before farming could progress really satisfactorily, he said.

They included promises for new legislation on food labelling, to ensure that only British-raised and grown food was labelled as coming from this country, and not food that was only processed here.

He said the power of the supermarkets would also be curtailed to ensure fairness in contracts with farmers' suppliers through the appointment of a retail adjudicator.

Past News

brianmay.com
Bookmark and Share