The NFU recognises only too well the devastating impact that TB has on farmers’ businesses, their families and their livelihoods. This is a disease which is destroying many farming businesses. It is precisely because of this that we have argued so passionately, and for so long, for a policy that deals with the problem of TB in the badger population as an absolutely essential part of the strategy for making England TB free.
The NFU has committed a massive amount of time, resource and energy to help the delivery of the pilot culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset this autumn because TB is the biggest threat to cattle farming in this country. We know only too well that something has to be done to stop the spread of this disease through wildlife and into our cattle herds.
Everyone within the NFU desperately wants to see the policy of culling badgers rolled out more widely and to control the onslaught of this disease in hotspots where TB is out of control. The NFU has led from the front in pushing for the policy, helping implement it and then ultimately overseeing its delivery.
We are committed to delivering effective, safe and humane culls. Most important of all, the badger controls must be able to deliver the ultimate aim of reducing TB in cattle. However, everyone who was closely involved in those pilots is all too aware that rolling the culls out to much bigger areas, such as the whole of Devon, would require a very different approach. The Independent Panel is still considering the results of the pilots, but it would be grossly irresponsible, some would say madness, for anyone to try and run much larger operations under current conditions.
I recognise that this is not going to be the news that many cattle farmers want to hear. The pressure that farmers are under from TB means that no solution can ever be fast enough. If there are only a small number of additional areas in 2014, this will undoubtedly feel too slow, too cautious or both to some. As Director General of the NFU I am absolutely committed to our policy that badger populations have got to be controlled if we are ever going to get on top of TB. However, I make no apology for being open and frank about what is possible, even though it would be easier to make promises that can’t be delivered. Over the last year I have seen the farming industry come together to deliver these culls in the face of high levels of intimidation. It’s important now, more than ever, for the farming industry to be united in its call for the badger population controls to be rolled out wider in areas where TB is rife and for the conditions to change to make this policy deliverable on a wider scale.
