NFU to ‘leave no stone unturned’ in pursuit to overturn Derbyshire badger cull no-go

The Derbyshire rejection is thought to have followed a last-minute intervention by the Prime Minister’s partner and long-standing opponent of the badger cull, Carrie Symonds, who recently met with Badger Trust chief executive Dominic Dyer.

Though she has denied any involvement in the Derbyshire decision, farmers on social media made clear they believed the meeting was inappropriate.

NFU vice-president Stuart Roberts assured members the union would ‘leave no stone unturned, both politically and legally’.

‘Worrying’

He said: “It should be worrying for us all if politics trumps science and evidence when making vital policy decisions.

“I want to make it clear we will not stand by and I will be making that case to Government in the strongest possible terms.”

On Monday (September 9), Ms Villiers told MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee culling would continue to be part of the Government’s TB strategy, despite refusing to explain why she had put a stop to the Derbyshire cull so abruptly when the vaccination programme there had been in place for two years.

She said she ‘regretted’ the short notice farmers and cull companies had been given, and suggested they could be eligible for some kind of compensation.

The news came as figures surfaced from a Freedom of Information request to Government which appeared to show the number of new herds with TB in Gloucestershire increased from 10 in 2017 to 23 in 2018.

But Gloucestershire vet Roger Blowey, who has been TB testing cattle for 50 years, said the figures, based on just one year of change, did not paint a true picture.

“What should be done is to compare what happened in the cull area to what happened in surrounding non-cull areas,” he said.

“This was done by Lucy Brunton and others [in a 2017 study], and they found a 58 per cent reduction in the Gloucestershire cull zone compared to surrounding non-cull zones.

“Mr Dyer and others consistently fail to refer to this paper.”

New figures released by Defra show the benefit of badger culling in England at between £420,000 and £2.85 million per area over 11 years, with a central estimate of £1.75 million.

Over 42 cull areas this would total £73.5m.

In its ‘Badger control policy: value for money analysis 2019’ report, the department estimated the future costs to Government at about £500,000 per area over four years.