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Farming Today: Badger vaccination, Cull marksman, Tilling machinery

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10/09/2014

Badger vaccination, Cull marksman, Tilling machinery

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, Badger vaccination, Cull marksman, Tilling machinery

A farmer weighs up the options of whether or not to vaccinate badgers.

Farming and countryside news with Anna Hill. As the latest badger cull gets underway, a farmer weighs up the options of whether or not to vaccinate badgers.

As the latest badger cull gets under way in Gloucestershire and Somerset, vaccinating badgers is being explored by the Wildlife Trusts in some 'edge areas'. It's the method already being trialled in Wales. 

Last week the government relaunched a scheme that offers financial support to vaccination projects in 'edge areas', those places most at risk of tb spreading from the South West and the West Midlands; it includes some, but not all, of Cheshire where a survey of road kill badgers has found that one in four were carrying the disease. Caz Graham visited farmer Bill Mellor just outside Stockport. His farm won't automatically qualify for DEFRA help for vaccination as he falls outside the edge area, but he's still considering the pros and cons of a vaccination programme. They were joined by Tom Marshall from the Cheshire Wildlife Trust.

As the harvest finishes and planting next years crops begins, farmers minds are turning to tillage. Anna Hill gets in to some heavy machinery to see how new technology is helping farmers.

Presented by Anna Hill and produced by Ruth Sanderson.

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