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Farming Today: Road killed badgers, Paralympic dressage, Sheep dogs trials

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09/08/2016

Road killed badgers, Paralympic dressage, Sheep dogs trials

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, Road killed badgers, Paralympic dressage, Sheep dogs trials

Road killed badgers, Paralympic dressage and sheep dog trials.

Road killed badgers and the 2016 badger cull, Paralympic dressage rider Sophie Wells and sheep dog trials. Presented by Caz Graham.

DEFRA figures show more than 36 thousand cattle were slaughtered because of bovine TB last year and it's thought to have cost the taxpayer £500 million pounds over the last decade. Since 2013 the strategy to reduce the incidence of bovine TB in England has included an annual cull of badgers in so-called high risk areas. It's a controversial policy and some time in the next few weeks, the 2016 cull is due to get underway. We look back over the cull since 2013. 

New reserach into 'edge areas' of TB incidence is being undertaken by researchers based at the Universities of Nottingham, Surrey and Liverpool. They are surveying road killed badgers from TB edge counties (ie those counties that sit between the high risk and low risk areas of England) for evidence of tuberculosis. 

Britain's para-equestrians have won team gold at every Paralympic Games since Atlanta in 1996. Sophie Wells won three medals at the 2012 Paralympics and is competing again in the Rio Paralympics next month. We met her training near Newark in Nottinghamshire. 

Presented by Caz Graham and produced by Emily Hughes.

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