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Environment Secretary under fire for delay on TB cull decision

THIS IS CORNWALL
4 April 2011
Disappointing to read such a totally one-sided argument.... presented here by This Is Cornwall described in the Comments as "biased and inaccurate" with out of date figures.

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman is more concerned with holding down her Government position than in the welfare of the national cattle herd, according to a Westcountry industry leader.

Caroline Spelman

Caroline Spelman

The charge was levelled at Mrs Spelman by Bill Harper, chairman of the National Beef Association's Bovine Tuberculosis Committee, who said the Government was dragging its feet over a cull of badgers to prevent the spread of the disease.

Mrs Spelman and the Government were showing a "huge abdication of responsibility" in not setting out a programme for a cull in hot-spot areas, such as the Westcountry – or even stating whether there would be a cull, he said.

Despite a proposed mid-January announcement on the bovine TB public consultation document, the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had yet to set out its plans on whether it would implement a controlled badger cull, he said.

Mr Harper, a Cornish beef farmer and animal-feeds producer, commented: "With feed, fuel and fertiliser costs soaring, businesses are struggling to keep their heads above water. It's a very difficult time for beef farming.

"But at the end of last year we felt the Government had grasped how important an issue bovine TB and badgers was – both in terms of financial survival and species welfare."

Yet now, he stressed, was the time when farmers turned out their cattle into the fields, and another year would have passed when the spread of TB would not be controlled.

"We are dismayed at the Government's delay in progress when it comes to controlling this disease," he added.

Bovine TB was responsible for the slaughter of 40,000 cattle last year, and farmers whose cattle test positive are placed under movement restrictions. Defra figures for last year showed that 28 per cent of movement restrictions had lasted more than a year and 97 of these exceeded 1,000 days.

Mr Harper said that while this country continued to harbour a wildlife reservoir of infection in badgers and deer, there was no chance of eradicating bovine TB.

Trials in the Republic of Ireland had provided evidence of the part badgers played in increasing the disease in cattle. The main conclusion of the trials was that the elimination of badgers over a substantial area, maintained over time, would have a beneficial effect on the disease in cattle. And New Zealand aimed to have official TB-free status by 2013 through control programmes targeting the possum and ferret populations.

Mr Harper added: "There is despair and desperation within affected sections of the farming community. Some people have been under restriction for years. We can see what the problem is, we know how to solve it and yet we are not allowed to do so.

"The farming community understands there needs to be a balanced approach to eradicate this disease. So for the sake of both our countryside's wildlife and our agricultural industry the Government must hurry up and make a sensible decision."

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