The cost of bovine TB

Are you aware of the following?

There has been a 26% increase in the number of new TB¹ incidents over the last year.

This was released by DEFRA on 17 September 2008 in the Monthly publication of National Statistics on the Incidence of TB in Cattle². See the extract below.

Provisional statistics show a 19% increase in the number of new TB incidents in January - June 2008 compared to the same period in 2007. Combined with a decrease in the number of herds tested over the same period, this equates to a provisional overall increase in the TB incidence rate (new TB incidents, as a proportion of tests on unrestricted herds) of 26%.
Herd restrictions due to TB testing are over 4 times greater in Devon than they are in the Irish Republic

The number of herds which were under TB movement restrictions in Devon, England as a result of TB testing at any time between January 2008 and June 2008 is 18.8%. This proportion ranges from 9 to 24% depending on county with Gloucester being worst affected.

The number of herds which were under restriction in the Irish Republic at any time between January 2008 and 5th October 2008 is 4.4%. This proportion ranges from 2.0% to 8.6% depending on county.

These sets of figures were supplied by DEFRA and DAF. The DEFRA data³ was sourced from http://www.defra.gov.uk and DAF data⁴ was supplied in response to an email request made to info@agriculture.gov.ie.

In the 12 months from August 2007 to July 2008 the tax payer paid out over £22 million pounds to compensate farmers within England.

This does not include any payments to veterinaries who carry out the testing⁵. In Devon, vets received 38% of payments made to farmers. The figures shown below and the figure quoted above for all of England were obtained from DEFRA in response to a request made under the Freedom Of Information Act.

The LVI fees paid for TB testing in Devon and the amount of compensation paid for reactor cattle in Devon during the last 12 months are set out in the table below:

MONTH	LVI FEES	COMPENSATION	TOTAL
August	£208,612.00	£466,166.00	£674,778.00
September	£171,966.00	£213,911.00	£385,877.00
October	£164,232.00	£350,170.00	£514,402.00
November	£53,652.00	£355,264.00	£408,916.00
December	£264,617.00	£596,120.00	£860,737.00
January	£218,905.00	£431,650.00	£650,555.00
February	£309,116.00	£487,704.00	£796,820.00
March	£303,816.00	£491,218.00	£795,034.00
April	£242,332.00	£483,704.00	£726,036.00
May	£230,206.00	£1,095,351.00	£1,325,557.00
June	£77,564.00	£582,302.00	£659,866.00
July	£198,055.00	£856,615.00	£1,054,670.00
TOTAL	£2,443,073.00	£6,410,175.00	£8,853,248.00

DEFRA does not collate the number of newly infected herds which are closed.

A closed herd is a herd in which all stock is replenished by artificial insemination. All cattle movement is recorded by the British Movement Cattle Scheme. In order to continue trading a farmer has to update a document known as a passport whenever an animal is bought or sold. It follows that this tracking system can be used to identify the incidence of Bovine TB in closed herds. If DEFRA were to collate the number of newly infected herds which are closed, this would help to reveal the extent to which the disease is being spread by non cattle-to-cattle means. One such source is through badger-to-cattle contact such as occurs when cows ingest grass close to badger setts⁶ and when badgers enter farm buildings whilst searching for food⁷. The following is an extract from a reply made by DEFRA to a request made under the FOI Act.

We do not hold a record of the number of "TB restricted herds which solely rely on artificial insemination for regeneration and growth." Information on `closed herds' as we call them, is gathered during the disease inquiry following an incident of TB in a herd and is recorded on individual files at the time but is not collated to give an overall figure. In addition, occasionally, farmers will be forced to abandon their closed herd policy and buy in cattle because of the losses suffered during the breakdown, hence making our record inaccurate.
A report⁸ compiled by Imperial College London and dated March 2008 has been discovered which weakens the basis on which Hilary Benn opposed the culling of badgers in July 2008.

In July 2008 Hilary Benn announced his decision not to allow the culling of badgers. In the debate⁹ which followed Mr Benn often cited the detrimental impact culling has on neighbouring areas outside the culling area. This report which outlines the results of a trial implemented by DEFRA, looks at the affects of culling after culling ceased. It both reports continued and more pronounced reductions in TB incidence inside the culled areas and diminished detrimental affects outside the culled areas.
Farmers are rapidly going out of business and this is leading to expensive imports

The hardship associated with bovine TB is causing dairy farmers to quit the industry at an increasing rate. Consequently milk production is rapidly falling off and England is now being forced to import over 1 million litres of milk a day from neighbouring countries at a cost. Countries such as Ireland, Germany and Italy are being fined heavily for producing milk over quota whereas milk production in England is well under quota. [Source Farmers Weekly¹⁰] Milk prices in the shops have increased by 13% in the last year (up to Nov 08) and a rapid fall in milk production will ensure that this trend continues.

Data in the above graphs was sourced from Low-level Agricultural Survey Datasets supplied by DEFRA¹¹.

References

Other relevant sources of information

Last Modified 19 Nov 2008 07:40