Press Release - All Welsh cattle farmers should support Government plans to introduce pilot badger controls

All Welsh cattle farmers should support Government plans to introduce pilot badger controls.    

The National Beef Association unreservedly backs the latest effort of the Welsh Assembly Government to begin a five year cull of badgers in a notorious TB hot spot in West Wales.
It urges every cattle farmer in the Principality to respond positively to the consultation document announced earlier this week by Rural Affairs Minister, Elin Jones, and makes clear that they too, must support plans to launch a multi-fronted attack on TB that includes controls on badgers.
“This means making sure you obtain a copy of the consultation paper, by post or by email, and then reply to it by saying that the Welsh Government’s plans to introduce badger controls in its West Wales Intensive Action Area has your full support,” said NBA director, Kim Haywood.
“The adoption of badger controls in Wales, first of all in this pilot project, and hopefully across all its TB infected regions, when results from the pilot area have been analysed, are so important that all cattle farmers must make sure that there is no doubting the depth of their support.”
“The battle against the economic and emotional damage wreaked by TB cannot be won unless the attack against it is comprehensive, is launched on all fronts, and includes a reduction in the badger population in heavily infected areas.”
“If this move by the Assembly Government is successful then the first moves to reduce TB through badger control could begin next spring and all cattle farmers will have even more encouragement to join in the all-out, all-industry, struggle against the disease, which must take place before it is eventually conquered.”
For more information contact:
Kim Haywood, NBA director.   Tel. 0131 336 1754/07967 698936