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Farming Today: Bovine TB, Agroforestry, Fishing post-Brexit

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07/11/2017

Bovine TB, Agroforestry, Fishing post-Brexit

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, Bovine TB, Agroforestry, Fishing post-Brexit

A vet, a dairy farm and a badger welfare campaigner come together to address bovine TB.

A vet, a big dairy farm and a leading badger welfare campaigner are working together on a new system for detecting bovine TB in various stages, to help bring an end to the disease.

A new system of testing for TB in cattle, being trialled in Devon, could offer more accurate readings than the current authorised system. 
Bovine Tuberculosis currently costs taxpayers £100 million a year. In 2016, 29,000 cattle were culled because of the disease, and up to 33,500 badgers have been culled this year in an attempt to stem its spread. 
Defra requires cattle to undergo regular skin tests, to check for TB; animals that show up positive for the disease have to be culled.
Now, vet Dick Sibley is trialling a new approach, involving two additional steps, a blood test and faecal test: which he believes can provide a more accurate result, and therefore root out TB more thoroughly from a herd.

We're talking about climate change in our programmes this week - an arena where farming is sometimes perceived as an all-round villain. Today though, some are finding ways of working that not only benefit the environment, but also improve animal welfare and, vitally, yields. 
David and Helen Brass run the Lakes Free Range Egg company in Cumbria, and have won numerous awards for sustainability - including, earlier this year, the Business in the Community Environmental Leadership Award for work with forestry and cutting carbon. David took Caz Graham for a walk through their woodland, to explain how and why the environment has become one of their top priorities. 

Fishing industry representatives are gathering this morning in London, to discuss the opportunities that Brexit offers the UK's fishing industry and coastal communities - as well as addressing issues they plan to raise with the Government. Anna Hill asked Barrie Deas, Chief Executive of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, what their priorities are, ahead of March 2019.

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