Consider alternatives to blanket cull, NFU urged
A farmer who has lost dozens of cattle to bovine tuberculosis says industry leaders should consider more ways of tackling the disease.
Cheshire dairy farmer Phil Latham has seen 80 of his cattle slaughtered this year alone. The farm had lost £14,000 a month in sales and £50,000 in capital assets – even though it had received some compensation and had been partially insured.
“As an industry, we have been utterly wrong-footed,” Mr Latham told Farmers Weekly. Anti-cull campaigners had capitalised on the endorsement of celebrities such as Queen guitarist Brian May to make a badger cull to combat bovine TB look abhorrent, he said.
“As dairy farmers, we might be indignant that we have been badly done to this year. But we didn’t manage to mobilise a fraction of the support mobilised by the ‘team badger’ brigade. We need a strategy that gets people behind us. We need to show we are willing to compromise.”
Rather than culling healthy and diseased badgers in a given area, Mr Latham said farm leaders should also consider a targeted cull involving the identification and culling of diseased badgers. A targeted cull would be more acceptable to the public, he said.
“As dairy farmers, we might be indignant that we have been badly done to this year. But we didn’t manage to mobilise a fraction of the support mobilised by the ‘team badger’ brigade. We need a strategy that gets people behind us. We need to show we are willing to compromise.”
Phil Latham
“Many people think we want to kill badgers. But people are our consumers and we need them on side. Getting them on side would help them help us deliver what we want – which is not actually a cull of badgers but control of the disease. That is what we are after.”
Mr Latham’s comments came after MPs voted by 147 to 28 against a badger cull. The outcome of the House of Commons debate on Thursday (25 October) is not legally binding but it illustrates the strength of feeling among backbench MPs.
NFU vice president Adam Quinney said the technology was “not yet there” for a cull targeting setts where the disease status was unknown. Existing tests were not accurate enough, said Mr Quinney. But he added: “That is not to say we shouldn’t be considering alternatives for the future.”
In the meantime, Mr Quinney said the union remained focused on ensuring two pilot culls went ahead next year in west Somerset and west Gloucestershire. The culls were cancelled at the last minute this autumn following higher than expected badger numbers.
“We need to make sure everyone has a full understanding of the badger numbers involved,” said Mr Quinney. The NFU was working closely with DEFRA to ensure that this was the case, he said. The culls are expected to begin next summer.
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