Since the tragic death of Derek Mead, the loss of a great friend & champion for agriculture, I’ve kept a dignified silence.Waiting on the hope that the results after 4 years of culling in Somerset & Gloucester would have shown some positive results.
But sadly the results were exactly as I expected, that random culling would be no different now than when the failed KREBs trials were ill conceived.
Sadly when mistakes are made in the beginning, people in authority ( to cover their own failings) persist in pushing their own failed agenda to the determent of the people that are the recipients of their incompetence-the cattle farmers.
Through their failures to understand the extent of infected wildlife, free to roam the countryside protected, failing to come up with a cost effective strategy to deal with the infected wildlife.They’re now trying to pass the buck onto cattle farmers, through more testing, movement restrictions, paying for testing & cutting compensation.
Sadly yesterday there was another expensive launch of an advisory service by DEFRA, another expensive bunch of jobs worth’s!.It will probably end up costing £millions. The NFU had £1.3 million & a 6 year advisory service that stopped when the funding ran out & which was money just poured down the drain.
This is all supposedly part of their ‘all the tools in the box 25 year plan’. Personally I’m sure the plan will work, but only in one way.
200 dairy farmers have quit the industry in the South West in the last 2 years, so i’m sure that their reasons to carry on their failure is bound to show results because in 25 years time there will be hardly any cattle farmers left, they will have died off or given up.
There was great joy a few years ago when it was announced that Paignton Zoo had a badger sett. Fast forward a few years and goodness would you believe it, they have had to shoot antelope that have contracted TB. I wounder where they got that? But don’t worry residence of Paignton they’re going to fence the badgers out, so they will need a new food supply.You’ll be able to view them going through your gardens, using the same bowls as your cats & dogs, eating your bird foo, leaving their deposits.Sadly wild deer are roaming with the infected badgers so it wont be much surprise that more & more deer are getting TB, but I doubt you’ll be able to fence them apart just as we cant with the cattle.
With Derek &the badger welfare Associations support we tried tirelessly to get a plan B, its proved already that vaccination doesn’t work, what ever people try to spin. Its logistically,practically & financially non existent, another useless tool.
Sadly with all the new restrictions being thrown at farmers that could have been avoided farmers will have to accept that the will be blamed and they will carry the cost which we tirelessly tried to get support to avoid.