JIM Paice carries with him an absolute conviction that the badger control package he has put together is the right way forward.

Following years in Opposition of berating Government Ministers for ‘prevarication’ on the issue, the current Farming Minister is staying true to his pre-election pledge to introduce a badger cull in England.

“Bovine TB is having a devastating effect on many farm businesses and families,” he said as he announced the policy.

 “We cannot go on like this. It is clear the current approach has failed to stop the spread of this terrible disease. We need to take urgent action to halt its spread.”

“Cattle measures will remain the foundation of our bovine TB control programme but we will not succeed in eliminating the disease in cattle unless we also tackle the disease in badgers.”

But despite his certainty over the need for a badger cull Mr Paice knows as well as anyone that the policy is fraught with complexities and potential difficulties.

Which is why he has been working towards this moment for a long time. He began painstakingly putting the details together, in conjunction with the industry, way back into his time in Opposition, in anticipation that the issue often described as a poisoned chalice for Ministers, would one day be his to deal with.

His task was to come up with a policy that is both deliverable on the ground and can be justified politically, through the media to voters and, in all likelihood, in the courts.

He believes he has delivered that this week, although he stresses that the package is, at the moment, only out for consultation. A final decision, with all details in place, is expected next spring.

Free shooting

A key element of this week’s package is the decision to allow farmers to shoot ‘free running’ badgers as a culling  option alongside cage trapping, the method deployed in the Randomised Badger Culling Trials (RBCT).

Farmers will cover the entire cost of badger removal. The big advantage with ‘free shooting’, which farmers will be able to do themselves as long as they possess the appropriate firearms licence, is that it will be affordable to all.

The alternative of employing a contractor to trap and shoot badgers, given the cost of the cages and manpower involved, would be financially out of reach for many.

Questions have been raised, however, about the potential animal welfare implications if badgers are wounded but not killed and also possible safety implications for humans of free shooting, which has not been trialled.

 “As a countryman my view is that free shooting would, in most cases, be by far the most effective option,” Mr Paice told Farmers Guardian this week.

“There may be security issues but I am not talking about talking about people just ranging around the countryside with a  rifle. If you put a high seat over a sett you could kill most of them fairly quickly.”

Mr Paice believes the inclusion of free shooting also goes a long way to overcoming the overarching conclusion from the RBCT that badger culling cannot ‘meaningfully contribute’ to the control of bTB in Britain.

Benn’s decision

He offers two core reasons why the Independent Scientific Group’s conclusions, which were key to Hilary Benn’s decision to rule out a badger cull, do not apply to his proposed policy.

The first is that ongoing analysis by former ISG scientists of the RBCT trial areas in the years since the culling ceased show the benefits of culling inside the cull areas increased over time, while the detrimental effects that had been observed around the culling areas disappeared. This provides a bigger net benefit than initially estimated.

“It shifts the balance dramatically to something like a 29 per cent reduction in TB incidence in cattle overall,” he said.

The proposed badger cull licence criteria have been set to ensure the ISG specifications for successful culling are met. The minimum culling area of 150sq.km exceeds the 141sq.km area scientists suggest is required to give confidence culling provide net benefits.

The requirement for 70 per cent coverage mirrors the coverage achieved in the RBCT, while farmers are encouraged ‘where possible’ to deploy boundaries around culling areas to reduce the risks of detrimental effects on the edge of the culling areas due to badger perturbation.

Then there is the question of cost. Mr Paice pointed out that the ISG’s conclusion that culling should not be seen as an effective was based partly on the cost of culling, as done in the trials, using cage traps and paid for by Government. He is proposing an entirely different method.

“If the Government then the economics don’t look good,” he said. “But under these plans, farmers will be able to do it themselves by shooting badgers, which is much cheaper. That is what radically changes the balance of ISG’s economic argument. If a farmer thinks it is not cost-effective, he won’t do it.”

One of the big concerns often expressed about a badger cull is that healthy badgers will be removed alongside infected. Mr Paice has for a long time been talking about deploying a ‘targeted’ cull of badgers and the possibility of using PCR  diagnostic equipment to help ensure only infected badgers are culled.

He now acknowledges that this is currently not an option as closer analysis of the technology has shown it is not sensitive or suitable for use in the field.

Vaccination

Then there is the vaccination question. Mr Paice is keen to stress that while he is happy to include injectable vaccination alongside culling, he does not believe vaccination is a viable alternative to culling.

Oral badger vaccines and injectable vaccines are still ‘years away’ from being available. The best available scientific and veterinary advice was that the currently available injectable badger vaccination would not reduce disease in cattle as quickly as badger culling, partly because it does not have any impact on badgers that are already infected, he said..

“Vaccination does not guarantee that all badgers are fully protected from infection and it would some time to develop immunity within a local population,” adding that thee is currently no evidence on the contribution it would make to reducing the disease in cattle.

Mr Paice is braced for a legal challenge to the policy but stressed Defra had gone to great lengths to ensure the policy is legally watertight.

Unlike in Wales, where the Assembly Government sought to introduce new legislation, which was annulled in the courts, Defra would be utilising existing legislation, the 1992 Badger protection Act, which already permits the licensed culling of badgers for disease control purposes. This is likely to make it harder to halt the policy through a legal challenge. “We would not need new legislation,” Mr Paice said.

The cull, if all goes according to plan, could start next May. Mr Paice warns farmers, however, not to expect quick results, estimating that eradicating TB could be a ’20-year process’.

He is under no illusions as to how the policy will be received in some areas – but he is adamant that it is the right thing to do.

 “Some people will not like it. Badger culling is not the whole answer but, if we want to halt the spread of bovine TB we need to control the disease in badgers.”

Have your say

Please do not complete the following form field for security reasons.

Name

E-mail

Comment

Post as

Anonymously

Display name