The Badger Trust has rejected claims made this week by the government and NFU used to justify the deeply controversial badger cull, which could begin in two areas of the South West imminently.

The Trust said that statements made by government ministers and NFU leaders to mark the release of Defra's new bovine TB Strategy, which will dictate the government approach to combating bTB over the next 25 years, contain "a series of equivocations and unsupportable assertions." The Trust also accused farming leaders and officials of complaining about the ruinous effect of slaughtering TB reactors "without acknowledging that ten times as many animals are killed because of other diseases."

The Badger Trust maintains that bovine TB can be addressed in England without resorting to culling.
The Trust states that, in the wake of the Second World War, when bTB was rife in the UK, the disease was brought close to eradication using cattle measures alone. It claims that, from 1990 onwards progressive relaxations of cattle restrictions and lack of pre-movement testing allowed the disease to spread again.

Trust spokespeople also suggested last week that the 'robust government-industry partnership' Defra is eager to pursue under the new strategy in fact "heralds a Coalition intention to offload the operational cost [of TB control] onto farmers."

Meanwhile, having unveiled its TB Strategy last week, Defra said a zero tolerance approach would be taken with farmers found flouting testing rules and biosecurity regulations which accompany the controversial badger culling policy. Although attention has been focused on the divisive issue of badger culling, stricter cattle measures have also come into force.

A department official said last week that farmers found flouting these rules would face severe penalties to their subsidy payments.