Tuberculosis - the latest rural crisis 8/1/02

JEREMY VINE:
It's against the law to kill badgers. They are a protected species. But this farmer has just shot one, and he's not in the least bit worried about us knowing. The badger was sick. But Bryan Hill wasn't just putting it out of its misery. He was trying to stop it giving his cows TB.

BRYAN HILL:
(FARMER)
Those claws are overgrown. That badger hasn't dug anywhere for a long time. The teeth are gone. It's had its mouth ripped by fighting somewhere. It has been using its nose a lot because it can't dig any more. That badger wasn't very well.

VINE:
And Bryan sees the illness as a threat to his business. Farmers are certain badgers are spreading TB. And some are now taking steps of their own to deal with it.

UNNAMED WOMAN:
You shot it? You're not concerned about getting into trouble for that?

HILL:
If I'm going to get into trouble for putting something out of its misery that would die of starvation, die of the freezing cold, because the winter is on us now, and is in here and could be contaminating the rest of the cattle round here - no, not a bit.

VINE:
Landowners have put two and two together. Today, they see twice as many cattle with TB as they did five years ago, and they also say the badger population has rocketed. So, by their reckoning, badgers must be infecting the cows.

HILL:
I don't want them all dead, nor do any of my neighbours. All we want is a sensible number of badgers living here - healthy badgers, healthy cattle and healthy countryside.

VINE:
In west Devon, where foot-and-mouth still casts long shadows, TB is yet another front to fight on. Bryan's farm is near Hatherleigh. A fifth of Britain's dairy herds live in this area. He escaped foot-and-mouth but this is a hot spot for TB as well.

HILL:
This is so precious to us. We've had BSE and foot-and-mouth. A lot of people have had to put up with TB. This is one thing we can't afford to have now. We can't go through another crisis - mentally, physically, financially, whatever. This is where the countryside starts to fight back. When you think of this valley now, there are three locations of badgers in this valley. The general public has a weird perception that badgers are an endangered species. I reckon, in just this valley - about three-quarters of a mile - over 120 badgers.

VINE:
Bryan's worries chew him up. There's nothing his friend, Paul Griffith, can do to allay his fears. He blames badgers for infecting his herd.

PAUL GRIFFITH:
(FARMER)
Look at this one, all covered with grass. There's just too many that are being allowed to get too far into the fields.

VINE:
Paul's infected cows were destroyed. But, 18 months on, the rules say the rest can't be moved outside the farm unless it's for slaughter.

GRIFFITH:
It was never in the herd in all the years I've had the herd. It cannot have been brought in, as no animals were brought in. It can only have come from outside. I'm almost positive it came through feeding animals outside in troughs, the badgers going into those troughs, contaminating them and passing it to the cattle.

VINE:
The picture looks so simple - until, that is, the badger protection lobby enters the frame. They're saying the farmers' theory is, at best, a guess. The badger, they believe, has been fitted up.

DR ELAINE KING:
(SCIENTIST, NATIONAL FEDERATION OF BADGER GROUPS)
There's no relationship between numbers of badgers and the level of TB in cattle. A lot of farmers say there is. Scientifically, there isn't a link at all. So there are a lot of points that farmers are making which are actually not supported by scientific evidence. That's why we need to have a policy based on sound science.

VINE:
But there is a hole where the sound science ought to be. Government trials have gone awry. Their aim has been to keep an area free of badgers and see if the cows there stay free of TB. But farmers are accused of killing badgers in areas where they're supposed to be left alone, and there's talk of cows going sick in the control zones because animal rights protesters have been releasing badgers from traps. So deadlock on the science, and when Bryan went down the pub to meet the conservationist, the atmosphere was testy.

HILL:
Badgers are the cause of TB in our cattle herd.

KING:
Then why are Government scientists saying we don't know that badgers are the cause?

HILL:
Because the Government scientists have been on a gravy train for the last 30 years looking at the causes. We have badgers out there with TB. You're saying isolate them, you're talking about bio-security. Then we turn our cattle out into the fields. Badgers with TB have totally free access - up to 30%...

KING:
But that's assuming that the badgers are giving the TB to the cattle.

HILL:
They are.

KING:
Quite often the TB is in the herd or it is brought in through purchased cattle.

HILL:
No, you're living in...

KING:
This is what Government scientists say.

HILL:
I'm afraid there has been too much science and not enough common sense.

KING:
We want the Government to improve the tests, to test cattle more often, to improve bio-security so that animals with TB aren't moved to new areas. That's what we're pushing for.

HILL:
You've caused the problem.

KING:
We haven't caused the problem.

HILL:
Yes, you have caused the problem. The badger protection act caused the problem in our area.

VINE:
Government trials are now resuming, post foot-and-mouth. But John and Maureen Bellew think the ministry is wasting time. Their land, 20 miles from Bryan's, was used as a control area in the last trials, which they say did work. One group of fields was cleared of badgers, and, sure enough, the cows there did not catch TB. In the other area, where badgers were not culled, the cows got sick. John finds it incredible that the law won't allow him to do the obvious - reach for his gun.

JOHN BELLEW:
(FARMER)
The badgers are still here. We cannot touch the badgers. If I'd got sheep on this farm, and a dog came out from town, I'd have every right to shoot that dog. The police would back me up. But if one stray badger comes on to my farm, he can be as bad or as ill as he likes, and he could probably kill 50 cows in one go, which is what is happening. And I cannot touch that badger.

VINE:
When a herd is infected, the farm becomes subject to a whole series of regulations. John's works to the rhythm of the rule book. He has to test his cattle for TB every 60 days. The Government, which slaughtered 8,000 TB-infected cows last year, is spending a whopping £50 million annually on the problem. For John, the cost is measured in time - his time and the bull's.

BELLEW:
From the safety aspect, I asked not to have this one tested. I didn't want to bring him round, from a safety aspect. But we have to test every animal on the farm. We're testing every 60 days, and there's four of us involved - myself and the wife and the two workmen. From the time we get the cows in the day before and have the cattle ready, we can work out it is one man, one day a week full-time testing, which will have to be paid for by myself.

VINE:
Cows may have tuberculosis even though they look healthy. So the vet injects them with dead TB bacteria to find out. If, as a result, they develop a lump on their neck, they are reactors - they're infected. They can't easily pass the disease on to a human, but they can spread it through the herd.

BELLEW:
This is the cattle we tested yesterday. We have 80 in this bunch. Two of these were reactors. The first thing anybody should be doing is picking the reactors out, save the risk of spreading them to the cattle. We're doing that now.

VINE:
Around the country, the testing programme is in a shambles. It was stopped in the chaos of the foot-and-mouth outbreak. Farmers think the resulting backlog could be hiding thousands of TB infections. John is starting to discover them.

BELLEW:
These two are definitely TB reactors. They're to be slaughtered on Wednesday. To look at them, they're healthy. You can't see anything wrong with them. But that is a thick lump, that one. They're both about 12 months old. Nothing we can do. They've got it. We shall be paid what they're worth at the moment, which is not going to be a lot. And they will be slaughtered. It is either these or the badgers.

BELLEW:
"Either these or the badgers." Is the farmer's frustrated refrain borne of conviction or confusion?

IAN ATKINSON:
(VET)
I'm sure the badgers are implicated. It's difficult to know where the badgers got the infection - whether they got it from the cows in the first place. It doesn't matter which way around it is. They're both involved. We have to try to eliminate it from both badgers and cattle if we're going to succeed.

VINE:
To be a farmer these days is to campaign. As if Bryan hadn't got enough to do turning a profit on his land, he's now off to a meeting of the West Devon TB action group.

UNNAMED MAN:
What is our main thrust? Over-population, isn't it?

HILL:
Over-population. We've got to do something.

UNNAMED MAN:
We're actually going there.

UNNAMED MAN 2:
Are we wrong asking for a welfare disposal? Financial help needs to be given for testing buildings, to find a better test, to bring the badger population under control, to identify and destroy infected sets.

HILL:
The morale is as low as you'll ever get. It can't get lower. We've experienced TB, and we know it is worse than foot-and-mouth.

VINE:
But try telling that to London.

UNNAMED MAN 2:
We're on our way to meet our own MP, who is going to escort us to meet the minister, Elliot Morley, so we can discuss the TB problem.

HILL:
This is where I would like to bring 250 badgers. I would honestly love for the general public to have Hyde Park full of badgers, so they can enjoy the experience of having the increase in numbers, the holes they've been digging, the mess they make, and the houses they undermine and not be allowed to do a damn thing about it.

VINE:
Along with their Lib Dem MP, they see the minister for an hour. They want to believe they have made progress.

UNNAMED MAN 3:
Well, we got two or three key points across, I think.

JOHN BURNETT MP:
(LIBERAL DEMOCRAT)
We had a useful meeting. We had an hour with the minister. We've got the minister's assurance that they will explore three particular options that could really help farmers. He would give no commitment on them.

VINE:
No commitment and no understanding of the countryside, Bryan's face seems to tell us. The farmers are worried they're being fobbed off.

UNNAMED MAN 2:
For the next few months, if you could perhaps push him, because we have a massive problem this winter following on the FM.

HILL:
Yes, but, John, I know - I'm sorry. I know we're looking at it differently, but we've been through BSE. They didn't act quick enough. It's going to cost the taxpayer thousands, millions, tens of millions. Why don't we just get on and tackle the problem? They're spinning around the badger protection groups. I'm not against badgers. If I was, I'd be at home killing them off now. I'm trying to get the point that you cannot treat the countryside like you are now. This is town, city people trying to solve a countryside problem. Politicians have not got the guts to tackle the situation at the roots, like a farmer would, and stop it at the source.

BURNETT MP:
Bryan, are you a scientist? Are you able to say with your hand on your heart...?

HILL:
I will put my hand on my heart 100%, that badgers are the cause of TB.

BURNETT MP:
I know what it's like for you. I know the tension and the pressure you have been up to for years. But you must understand that there has to be a proper body of scientific evidence. Thanks for coming up. We have put some pressure on. He had an hour and you had half of it. So well spoken.

HILL:
Let's go.

VINE:
On crutches because he recently dropped a concrete slab on his foot, Bryan Hill looks as if he's just suffered another blow. Yet more bad times for farmers, waiting for the science to catch up with their sufferings.