‘Farmers who have avoided TB for six years can revert to annual testing’

“From stringent biosecurity to the application of risk-based trading principles, farmers need to be doing everything they can to stop this disease spreading.”

The report also sets out a new programme of action designed to increase farmers’ resilience to bovine TB, including a £25,000 investment to improve the TB Hub website – the central hub for information on the disease.

Mr Eustice said the government would continue to apply a range of interventions, including cattle movement controls, increased and better TB testing and licensed badger control in certain areas.

More than 32,000 badgers were culled in a six-week badger control operation between September and November 2018 across 30 areas in Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumbria, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Somerset, Staffordshire and Wiltshire.

Biosecurity

NFU vice president Stuart Roberts said it was important the policy conditions around earned recognition did not create unfair trading environments which penalise farmers already struggling with TB.

He said: “Farmers across the country are already taking a range of steps to protect their businesses from this disease, through measures such as securing feed stores, double fencing fields to stop nose-to-nose contact with cattle on adjoining farms, and preventing wildlife accessing buildings.

“Many of these measures have additional benefits in terms of minimising the risk of other cattle diseases. The key for farmers is which biosecurity measures bring the greatest disease control benefits.”