Annual testing for West Berkshire cattle

Testing in the area was previously on a three-yearly basis, however recent outbreaks across the country have seen the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) take measures to restrict the disease, which came into effect on January 1.
Neighbouring counties Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Buckinghamshire and Hampshire are also among the 23 counties, predominantly in the south and south-west of England, that are being tested annually.
The remaining counties will be tested on a four-yearly basis.
A spokeswoman for Defra, Sophie Willett, said: “We need to expand the core annual testing area to include areas that, although not currently high-risk for TB, are at risk of a spread of TB, to keep ahead of this disease.”
Environment minister Richard Benyon, who is a cattle farmer in West Berkshire himself, is in strong support of the changes.
“I think they are necessary,” he said. “[The government] wants to do everything we possibly can to stamp out this horrible disease.
“It’s costing the tax payer a large amount of money.”
Last week, Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, said in his speech at the 2013 Oxford Farming Conference: “Bovine TB is the most pressing animal health problem in the UK. Its impact on our cattle farmers, their families and their communities cannot be overstated.
“Last year TB led to the slaughter of 26,000 cattle in England at a cost of nearly £100million.
“In the last 10 years bovine TB has cost the taxpayer £500million,” he added. “This will rise to an estimated £1billion over the next decade if the disease is left unchecked.”
Pilot badger culls are also going ahead this summer in parts Somerset and Gloucestershire in a bid to reduce the presence of the disease.
However one Newbury farmer, Chris Austin, feels the new measures are not enough and is calling on the government to loosen its protection on badgers, which are currently protected under the Badgers Act 1992 despite being large carriers of bovine TB.
“When I started keeping cattle 30 years ago TB was virtually eradicated in this country,” he said. “We are now talking about the government paying experts to go around shooting them.
“As a land owner you have the right to control rabbits, rats, mice, deer, the only animal you don’t have a right to control is badgers.
“They absolutely don’t need that sort of protection.”