A letter to Farmers Guardian

Sir,
Mr Denny accuses the NFU of colluding with the Badger Trust and betraying the already depressed farming community (FG, Dec 9), but it is he who has made inaccurate accusations and misunderstands the NFU’s involvement in the vaccination project. The NFU's position has not changed, we believe that proactive culling of badgers in high incidence areas is necessary to reduce the weight of infection in the badger population and that vaccination alone will not do this. The extent of the NFU’s involvement in this project has simply been to facilitate contact between the Badger Trust and a small number of farmers who wish to have badgers on their land vaccinated against bovine TB - the NFU has not ‘squandered’ any money on this.
The NFU has worked hard, on behalf of its members, to demonstrate to government that industry can deliver a safe, humane, effective cull. We fully understand the limitations of injectable badger vaccination in terms of cost and deployment but also question whether vaccination actually translates to a reduction of the disease in cattle. Perhaps Mr Denny should understand that his views may not be universally popular with the wider public and indeed some farmers will choose not to cull the badgers on their land, therefore we must explore all possible alternatives.
The NFU and the Badger Trust have been prepared to talk to each other, despite our differing views on what needs to be done and whether the vaccination of badgers would be a practical or cost effective way of reducing the incidence of TB in cattle. A project on this scale, although very limited may help to provide useful evidence on these points.