06/03/20 - The phasing out of the badger cull

Farming Today

• Episode: 06/03/20 - The phasing out of the badger cull
• Website: Farming Today
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:13:41
• Published: 2020-03-06 07:00

The government is phasing out badger culls as a way of trying to control the spread of TB in cattle and will instead extend vaccination programmes. Defra says TB in cattle costs the taxpayer around £70 million a year, and that the cost to the farming industry is about £50 million. Infected animals are culled - in 2018 33,000 of them. Farmers point to both the business and human costs of the disease - although they are paid compensation for culled stock, infected farms are effectively closed, with no cattle allowed in or out. There are currently 40 badgers culls across the country. They're largely paid for and run by farmers and aim to reduce the spread of the disease by reducing the number of badgers which can infect cattle (and be infected by them). Culling has been a very controversial policy with rows over whether it works, how humane it is and how cost effective. This announcement has come in the long awaited government response to the Godfray Review- first published in October 2018. Presented by Charlotte Smith Produced by Heather Simons