20 Feb 2024
Minette Batters defends role of badger culling as part of bTB eradication strategy before urging politicians to work with them in tackling the problem.
Allister Webb
Job Title
Minette Batters.
The fight to eradicate bTB in England and Wales must not be allowed to become a political battleground, the NFU president has warned.
Minette Batters told the union’s annual conference in Birmingham today (20 February) that the upcoming general election would be “critical to the future of farming”.
But with the two main parties divided over their approach to bTB control and an election looming, she used her opening address to defend the role of badger culling in disease control and deliver a clear political challenge.
Mrs Batters told delegates the disease “doesn’t respect borders” and led to the slaughter of nearly 30,000 cattle last year.
She added: “My message to all politicians is this, ‘Please don’t politicise this hideous disease’.
“Any government must surely want to have healthy cattle and healthy badgers. To achieve this, we must all continue to use every tool in the toolbox, and conference, epidemiological culling must be part of any plan.”
Although a long-awaited consultation on future culling policy in England has yet to begin, Defra has persistently argued that it has played a key role in reducing disease levels despite an ongoing scientific dispute and campaigning activity against it.
However, culling does not take place in Wales, where the policy is determined by the devolved, Labour-run administration.
Farming minister Mark Spencer and shadow environment minister Daniel Zeichner are due to take part in a hustings session at the conference tomorrow (21 February) alongside the Liberal Democrats’ environment spokesman, Tim Farron.
