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August 20 2008 ~ "Without a market I have had to kill around 2,000 calves since the ban"

As feared, the knock-on effect of the Dutch ban on calf imports in July following the TB case (see below) means that more male calves than ever are being shot by reluctant farmers. As the Farmers Guardian article today shows, they have no viable choice unless the losses mean nothing to them. A market price of £5 to £15 just isn't enough to persuade farmers "to take their lower end black and white calves to market". Andrew Hendy of one of Britain's largest calf export companies is quoted:
"By the time you have tagged them, waited a week for their passport, fed them and looked after them, transported them to market and paid a commission on the sale, it is not worth it. I am for everything to do with welfare and I have even pulled around 200 calves to rear myself but I have now run out of space. Without a market I have had to kill around 2,000 calves since the ban. I am devastated and I am as low as you can get," he said.
We read that at Sedgemoor market on Saturday, for example, there were 400 Holstein bull calves - but not a single farmer to bid for them because they have no space to rear calves and no confidence in the market.

August 20 2008 ~ viable supply chains are needed to make calf rearing affordable

Chief policy advisor at Compassion in World Farming, Peter Stevenson, is quoted in the Farmers Guardian article: "We need to expand the UK veal industry and replace veal imports. Industry also needs to make a real commitment to rearing for beef. For this to happen farmers need to know their finished animals will get a good price and this is where the retailer needs to step in where they have failed in the past," he said.
Farmers Weekly today also reports on the Beyond Calf Exports project, led by Compassion in World Farming and the RSPCA . The group "recognises that viable supply chains are needed to make calf rearing affordable to dairy farmers"....
But one industry expert is quoted as saying, this is a "chicken-and-egg scenario...Buyers won't offer the contracts until they see evidence of better calf-rearing practices and farmers won't invest in producing healthier, stronger male calves until they see a profitable market." The 'Beyond Calf Exports' group identifies three objectives to help this happen. Read FWi article in full
A warmwell reader from Kansas writes in deep disgust:
"What a total waste! And no wonder the compost issue is back up on the table. Heck fire, if you're gonna kill all of 'em off, why not put 'em on a spit and barbeque the meat? But no, that's not even a consideration. I swear your UK is the killingest-happy, wasteful bunch of people in the world, when it comes to livestock."
It would be cheering to see the media take up this issue. The waste and distress caused by such carnage is simply not seen or understood by those who would probably be delighted to buy British rose veal if they understood the issues.

August 20 2008 ~ EU to investigate the issue of composting of animal by-products in the UK

On August 9 we reported that DEFRA assurances about safety were being officially questioned. Relying on a mathematical risk analysis produced by a single scientist in 2002, Defra maintained that there was only a " low risk" of animal disease such as Foot and Mouth from composting meat, blood and feathers, and then spreading the results on farmland. (see alsoYorkshire Post)
DEFRA championed meat composting when it became politically expedient to find a way of dealing with the excess of waste food formerly turned into swill (a practice banned even though the FMD crisis of 2001 was never proved to be linked to swill) - but as Robert Persey wrote last year,
"..... the Government has been allowing the composting of meat and feathers on farms in open windrows. Incredibly some of these activities are taking place on livestock farms..."
He explained that animal by-product composting can only be safe if done in vessels within enclosed facilities, operating at negative air pressure with the exhausted air being chemically scrubbed.
We now hear that EU Commissioner Vassiliou has written to say that the Commission's Food and Veterinary Office in their forthcoming mission to the UK from 17 to 26 November 2008 will cover the issue of the composting of animal by-products.

August 19/20 2008 ~ British "rose" veal - back in favour

"The RSPCA and Compassion in World Farming (CIWF).... are happy to redeem the meat in the eyes of consumers, so long as it is high-welfare veal." See /www.thisisdevon.co.uk

August 18/19 2008 ~ Can the EU really - possibly - not know that such a small portable machine has been in existence for years?

According to the BBC website, the EU is to fund a £2.3 million project to develop a diagnostic machine for H5N1. UK experts have called for a national surveillance programme to detect H5N1 cases in Indonesians and Dr Alan McNally, from Nottingham Trent University, "believes his technology could make a difference."
However, Dr Roger Breeze tells us that the Indonesian government and US Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections Surveillance System (GEISS) have already been monitoring, detecting and responding to avian influenza H5N1 in Indonesia for several years. GEISS uses PCR devices in labs and also the Idaho Technology RAPID for portable field detection.
The EU, according to the BBC, "hopes to come up with a version of the machine that can fit within a briefcase" Dr Breeze points out that the RAPID "is sold in a small suitcase." As for rapid diagnostic testing on-site for foot and mouth: "I am not sure how small the EU briefcase is, but Smiths Detection has been selling a portable device for on farm detection of foot and mouth disease and avian influenza that until today I would have sworn under oath was briefcase sized..."

August 18/19 2008 ~"... It has been possible and practical to use the RAPID device to detect avian influenza virus on farm and in the field since 2000."

Dr Breeze recently visited the laboratory at Kamphaeng Phet, in northwest Thailand, operated by the Royal Thai Army and the US Defense Department and his email, complete with links, explains that when Indonesian patients are PCR positive (the hospital lab returns results within 2 hours), a mobile team then travels to the affected village to examine and test others with just such a portable RT-PCR kit as the EU now declares it "hopes" to develop.
"... I asked the lab director if the results of PCR tests performed in the village were regarded by public health authorities with the same validity as those conducted in the lab itself. She replied,"Of course. It is the same people performing the test in both places using the same controls, test reagents and equipment. Why would we not treat them identically?"
Read in full

August 16 2008 ~ "It seems to be unlikely that wild birds have carried the strain to Africa..."

The detection of a new avian influenza virus strain in Africa is raising serious concerns - and it is uncertain how this strain -genetically different from the strains that circulated in Nigeria during earlier outbreaks but similar to strains previously identified in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, has been introduced to Africa. Scott Newman, International Wildlife Coordinator of FAO's Animal Health Service is quoted by www.farminguk.com
"It seems to be unlikely that wild birds have carried the strain to Africa, since the last migration of wild birds from Europe and Central Asia to Africa occurred in September 2007 and this year's southerly migration into Africa has not really started yet, It could well be that there are other channels for virus introduction: international trade, for example, or illegal and unreported movement of poultry. This increases the risk of avian influenza spread to other countries in Western Africa."
Read in full

August 15 2008 ~ Double tagging - "threatening the very future of the industry while showing no benefit for the producer or consumer..."

Sheep born in 2008 and not intended for slaughter under 12 months of age have to be double tagged either by the age of nine months if extensively reared or when they leave the holding of birth. As the Cumberland News said last week:
"With the seasonal sales of breeding sheep just starting and the sales of gimmer ewe lambs just around the corner, it is first real test of whether sheep farmers are correctly identifying their animals. National Sheep Association chief executive Peter Morris said: "No-one in the sheep industry is happy that we now have to double tag our sheep that have been born in 2008 and which are not intended for slaughter as lambs. This adds cost and hassle to sheep producers at a busy time of the year and it is very difficult to understand what it achieves in terms of improving traceability."
The CLA agrees that this legislation will only add cost with no improvement in the traceability. The CLA petition calls on DEFRA "to resist the decision to implement sheep EID, as it would add disproportionate and significant practical and financial burdens to the industry in this country, threatening the very future of the industry while showing no benefit for the producer or consumer." See also below

August 14 2008 ~ farmers to pay a headage fee in return for "possibly" an independent body on Animal Health policy

It looks as though livestock farmers in England are going to be forced to pay a fee for every animal they produce. The plan is part of the government's cost sharing scheme about which we have commented several times.
The money collected would fund a new animal health body. There are apparently two options - the first is to create a department like the Food Standards Agency, considered to be independent and without a Minister while the other would be a public body answerable to Defra Ministers. (More details in the Farmers Guardian)
Although the consultation will discuss
"how much independence it will be granted from Ministers... and how it responds to major disease outbreaks"
the proposals may not satisfy the call for an independent body to take on the future decision making for animal health. This call was made last month in an eight-point statement of agreement by an industry stakeholder group.
The Defra spokesman quoted in the Farmers Guardian article made it clear that the new body would not be built from scratch but instead be made up from Animal Health, (i.e.the SVS) and parts of DEFRA itself. The reins of control, once grasped, are never lightly given up - but a strand of accountability, or "Performance Benchmarks" such as suggested here in Dr Roger Breeze's paper, Industry Cost Sharing, must surely be an essential part of any scheme and binding on both sides.

August 13 2008 ~ Des Turner, Labour MP is calling Prince Charles a Luddite.

There is outrage being expressed (Telegraph this afternoon) from those - Lord Haskins included - who are implying that Prince Charles' warning about the multinationals' use of GM crops for profit is a rejection of all science in agriculture. This is not what he is saying. His passionate view echoes that of a recent UNESCO statement:
"...We must develop agriculture that is less dependent on fossil fuels, favours the use of locally available resources and explores the use of natural processes such as crop rotation and use of organic fertilisers"
Crop rotation, the use of organic fertilisers and understanding of local resources are the time honoured ways of working with nature. But, as Prince Charles shows in yesterday's interview, the so-called Green Revolution and its genetic engineering technologies are dependent on external suppliers of seeds, fertiliser, pesticides and water. That this comes at a huge price is now becoming evident - even to those most blinded by the alllure - political and financial -of untried technologies that need external and expensive inputs.

August 13 2008 ~ relying on multi-nationals to mass-produce GM food would drive millions of farmers off their land and lead to "absolute disaster" - says Prince Charles

Prince Charles speaks of the damage being "wreaked on the earth's soil by scientists' research" and warns that huge multi-national corporations involved in developing genetically modified foods are conducting a "gigantic experiment with nature and the whole of humanity - which has gone seriously wrong". Millions driven off their own land and "into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness." There is an audio link on the page in which we hear him warning that it could all end in "absolute disaster".
What should be being debated was "food security not food production", he says. Telegraph article. Food Security was indeed debated in Parliament on June 30th this year - and there were several voices dutifully claiming that GM can solve the world's hunger. It was rather alarming to hear statements, even from the wary, such as, "Whether people want to grow those crops is up to them, as is whether they think there is a market for such production..." as if there really were some kind of democratic choice involved.
Food security in all its aspects has become a most urgent issue for Britain as well as for the rest of the world and it is cheering to see what genuine and powerful concern Prince Charles shows for the planet and for those who have no such voice to raise in eloquent protest.
"... if they think its somehow going to work because they are going to have one form of clever genetic engineering after another then again count me out, because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time."

August 13 ~ Was Prince Charles trying to turn back the clock?

He is quoted: "I think not. I'm terribly sorry. It's not going backwards. It is actually recognising that we are with nature, not against it. We have gone working against nature for too long.
Look at India's Green Revolution. It worked for a short time but now the price is being paid.
I have been to the Punjab where you have seen the disasters that have taken place as result of the over demand on irrigation because of the hybrid seeds and grains that have been produced which demand huge amounts of water. [The] water table has disappeared. They have huge problems with water level, with pesticide problems, and complications which are now coming home to roost. ..." The article should be read in full.

August 11/12 2008 ~ "a lifetime's work taken away in hours"

Monday's Times published a letter from the NFU Chairman for Surrey reminding readers that it is a year since the 2007 FMD crisis devastated farming in that county - and far beyond. It was "traced to a drainage system in disrepair after years of underinvestment by the Government."
A year later there is "no sign of any compensation for farmers other than the paltry sum paid to those who had the trauma of seeing their animals killed, for most a lifetime's work taken away in hours..." and the letter compares this with what the government has spent in, for example, rescuing Northern Rock.
Warmwell.com followed the crisis in full, updating every day even before the virus was traced to Pirbright. Those reports began here on August 3 2007 (scroll upwards) and constitute a record that may be referred to when it is claimed that the lessons of 2001 were learned. Sadly, they were not.

August 11 008 ~ "hardened to seeing huge gaps on the shelves.."

A cattle farmer from Cheshire, whose family has been farming since 1947, has sent us this perhaps not entirely unlikely letter from 2028 "looking back" on a succession of mistakes and misfortunes to hit the farmers of this country.
"...As food prices rocketed skywards, the public perception was that farmers were profiteering at the expense of consumers, a view strengthened by the propaganda issuing from the publicity departments of the major supermarkets, aided and abetted by government ministers..... Those who could afford the time and the money had taken to growing their own fruit and vegetables, and many landowners on the urban fringes were making a comfortable living from renting allotments to town and city dwellers. Those who relied on the major supermarkets for their provisions had become hardened to seeing huge gaps on the shelves.....
As I write, in early May 2028, we are on the eve of a general election, where the issue of food supply and security has been dominant in the campaign. Hungry stomachs have bred huge popular discontent..."
Read in full

August 10 008 ~ Bovine TB confirmed in another human

Although the UK has always maintained that the current risk posed by bovine TB to human health is "considered negligible," a woman in Cornwall has had the disease confirmed. (See Western Morning News) "..... In the past 14 years, 44 people have been confirmed as having the disease in the South West, which represents a tenth of the national figure for the same period." See also bTB page

August 9 ~ DEFRA assurances about the "low risk" of animal disease from animal by-products are at last being officially questioned

Before 2001 the two million tonnes or so of waste food was being recycled annually by swill feeders - but after the swill ban hastily put in place to give credance to the never-proved notion that FMD must have begun in pigswill, waste was diverted to landfill. DEFRA championed meat composting when it became politically expedient to find a way of dealing with such waste food - but there have been grim lapses of safety. As Robert Persey wrote last year,
"......Recently the Government has been allowing the composting of meat and feathers on farms in open windrows. Incredibly some of these activities are taking place on livestock farms with the connivance of state vets.."
He pointed out that the Animal By Products Order 2005 does not allow waste meat onto premises where livestock are kept. The CVO and the Secretary of State were sent photographic evidence of such waste sited right next to cows. The Environment Agency seems not to have been alarmed by photos of unprocessed feathers, rats and ponds of pollution liquor. Now that a new safety review is being commissioned,the measures that Mr Persey has urged all along may be enforced:
"Composting should be in vessel within enclosed facilities, operating at negative air pressure with the exhausted air being chemically scrubbed."
(See also the Yorkshire Post today.

9 August 2008 ~ Bird Flu: dumping and the art of crisis management

At the time of last year's H5N1 outbreak, the operations director of the Gressingham Foods 'subsidiary', Redgrave Poultry, was well briefed. The objective of the careful media handling during the crisis was to
"protect the Gressingham Foods and Redgrave Poultry brands from negative association with bird flu. .."
For thousands of Gressingham Food birds, however, (since profits are more important than protection by vaccination to officialdom), the negative association with bird flu could be seen, graphically illustrated, in the Daily Mail article of November 2007 which quoted Mr Buchanan:
"We believe the outbreak has been contained and that the measures are in place to allow us to continue to serve our customers. ... "
He did not mention that his company had been dumping dead poultry from all five Redgrave farms into one single skip just metres away from where thousands of birds were kept. Even when he pleaded guilty this week to eight charges relating to the illegal dumping incident, and was heavily fined, he appears to have remained at ease: "We always work with trading standards and Defra and other regulatory bodies and we will continue to do so....." (See EADT24)

August 9 ~ "The Vet lab virologists are producing fine data on the sequences of the viruses and the politicians seem conveniently deaf to the meaning of this"

As we have seen with Bluetongue, once the political will is there, vaccine production and implementation can go into overdrive even when vaccines are new.
It would be within our power to control animal diseases if policies were enforced that were based on sound veterinary science rather than on trade considerations. As far as bird flu is concerned, the official line always tends to blame "wild birds" rather than consider the stress of intensive methods of rearing - but H5N1 is an especial risk in high density production, as we have seen in the UK. No wild birds have yet been shown to have been implicated in spread. Whatever the vector, vaccination protects against the virus (see for example this webpage). Much as we abhor intensive poultry production, if birds - even in intensive premises - were all vaccinated, and subsequently challenged by wild virus (see email)
"...any flock or herd which has been vaccinated will have only mild clinical disease - which most us thought was the object of the exercise....any virus infection introduced would have low flock spread with little if any subsequent shedding into the environment."
As for people who actually care about the welfare of their birds,
"Vaccine for all the smallholders' birds would be very effective in preserving them clinically well - and in lower density flocks transfer of wild type virus would be minimal or none. The Vet lab virologists are producing fine data on the sequences of the viruses and the politicians seem conveniently deaf to the meaning of this."
(Read in full)

8 August 2008 ~ Farmland under surveillance by robot aircraft

Qinetiq, the defence technology company (termed by the Register here as,"controversial war-boffinry spinoff firm, Qinetiq") that advises the Government, has undertaken a joint research project with Aberystwyth University into the use of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). (see BBC today) Farmland in England and Wales has been monitored by the robot plane "to map the nitrogen levels in soil, to determine whether fertiliser applications were needed ..."

8 August 2008 ~ Monsanto's milk hormone not such a cash cow?

Fifteen years ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of hormones for use in dairy production. Now, according to the Ithaca Journal, Monsanto seems to be hoping to sell off its bovine hormone business, "Posilac". Perhaps its efforts to deny consumer information about the product (see below our reports in March) and to prevent organic dairy farmers and others from labelling their products as free of the growth hormone have failed. Perhaps they have actually served to raise public awareness that bovine growth hormone can pose a risk to both humans and animals, creating more mastitis or conditions needing treatment with antibiotics. It is cheering to know that, once informed, many consumers are concerned not only for their own health but also for the welfare of the animals that produce their food.

7/8 August 2008 ~ Science and politics. ProMed on the disturbing case of Dr Bruce Ivins

An anthrax researcher for the past 18 years, Dr Ivins had been placed under intensive and stressful surveillance by the FBI in connection with the anthrax letters case of 2001 in which 5 people died. ProMed, always careful to avoid controversy, evidently feels concern about methods used by the FBI in trying to obtain a conviction against Dr Ivins, and about some of the media reporting of the case. Dr Ivins died from a mix of Tylenol and codeine, diagnosed as a suicide, on July 29. Some may inevitably draw some parallels with the case of Dr David Kelly.
Along with several news reports, taking various stances, quoted by Pro Med is the "highly regarded and respected" Richard Spertzel's article in the Wall Street Journal: "Bruce Ivins wasn't the anthrax culprit"
The moderator's final comment on Aug 5:
"....As scientists we spend a majority of our time trying to prove our choice hypotheses wrong. Assuming for the moment that the FBI is mistaken and Bruce was innocent, what would he need to show to prove it? A depressing situation to be in if innocent."
Such FBI evidence as had been released on the 6th August hardly seems to answer the disturbing questions posed on ProMed - and the moderator's comment on August 6th was unequivocal: "The FBI has fingered the wrong man." and today's post, (the last for various valid reasons) concludes
"...Clearly, the evidence was circumstantial. The FBI claims it was adequate to get a conviction. If you read the Washington Post account of his memorial service below, attended by some 200 persons including the most senior staff at USAMRIID, it is clear that Bruce was held in affectionate regard and respect in Frederick.".
The Washington Post account refers to a statement issued later in the day by Ivins's attorneys: "No one who attended [the] service could believe that Dr. Ivins committed any crime."
(An interesting article by Alexander Cockburn on the same subject was published yesterday at www.thefirstpost.co.uk)

6 August 2008 ~ Continuing deep concern about the siting of the US National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility on the mainland

US Congressman, Brad Miller, is quoted at www.indyweek.com:
".... sober, serious concerns about the facility that DHS (i.e. Department of Homeland Security) has not satisfied.
If democracy means anything, local elected officials speak for the people of their community, and local elected officials in Granville County now oppose bringing the facility to Butner. ...
I continue to believe that we must do the research that would be conducted at the proposed facility to protect public health and our food supply, whether at the current location at Plum Island or elsewhere, and that wherever the research is done it must be done safely."
See also other recent postings

August 5 2008 ~ The dual dangers of relying on food and energy imports

The UK has become less and less self-sufficient. One uncomfortable piece of news to emerge in the last few days is that Russia, the world's fifth-largest grain grower, looks set to create a state grain trading company to control up to half of its exports. Reuters reports that "Russia's long-neglected agricultural sector is undergoing a revival as investors seek to cash in on the country's potential as a major supplier of grains to world markets". This is making people wonder (See FT) if Russia's plan is to use food exports as political leverage "in the same way as Gazprom has manipulated natural gas sales"
As for China, its exports of key grains such as corn and rice are shrinking fast because of growing demand at home It has between 750 and 800 million farmers -- nearly double the entire population of the EU. The majority survive on the equivalent of about one pound a day. Ipsnews.net said today: "... in a sign of deep anxiety over food security, this time around China shared India's opposition to a Doha deal that New Delhi had argued would hurt its millions of poor farmers. The move comes amid mounting challenges for Beijing to feed its 1.3 billion people against shrinking arable land and water shortage."
We may be facing very grim times ahead.

Aug 2 2008 ~ Four year funded project on diagnosis ended on July 31

Two days ago the "LAB-ON-SITE" project to improve diagnosis of nine diseases on OIE List A came to an end.
The Labonsite website mentions the "combination of the development of rapid, simple pen-side tests, and the application of new advanced high-tech approaches" - but it is hard to judge whether advanced high-tech technology was envisaged for both the pen-side diagnostics and the central laboratories.
The poster produced at the end of the project mentions
"....simple "on-site" diagnostic methods.... novel, highly sensitive, specific, high-throughput and robust methods for central institutes..... simply equipped field laboratories ....."
In the EU, penside tests have been developed to test for antigen only.
Reference Laboratories may be understandably jealous of their position and status and would certainly not want to find themselves by-passed. However, FMD and other List A diseases cannot be rapidly controlled if samples from animals not yet showing clinical symptoms still have to be transported long distance to such laboratories for definitive analysis.
We know, for example, that "a highly sensitive and specific one-step multiplex RT-PCR assay has been developed and standardised for the simultaneous and differential detection of the most important vesicular viruses affecting livestock." ( abstract) Can such as this not be used rapidly in the field, as in the former Soviet Bloc? Comment would be gratefully received.

Aug 2 2008 ~ A "specific web-site for knowledge communication" was one of the objectives of Work Package 9..

..of the four year EU project mentioned above - but such knowledge that appeared seemed to be communicated sparingly and somewhat erratically. A new site, http://foot-and-mouth.org/ is to replace it. It may perhaps disseminate more useful information about FMD and about the scientific basis for future policies to control Transboundary Animal Diseases.

July 31/ Aug 1 ~ bTB: The EU Working Document's ten point plan adds restriction and cost to farmers

As we have seen, it is much easier and more politically expedient to kill cattle who react to controversial TB testing than to concentrate on eradicating bTB in wildlife reservoirs - but farmers, frustrated with Defra and deciding to complain to the European Commission may, according to today's Farmers Guardian, discover that such an appeal could backfire.
" and it is not impossible that restrictions could extend to all live animals, raw milk and raw milk products. .."
The Commission's ‘Working Document on the Eradication of TB in the EU' suggests whole herd culling in places - and includes such bland-sounding but devastating sentences as "Provided depopulation of a herd is carried out in accordance with a well-defined and appropriate strategy, then there is a reasonable likelihood that the reconstituted herd or epidemiological unit will remain free from the disease...."
The FG says,
"Defra could apply 95 per cent of the Working Document's ten point plan (which add restriction and cost to farmers) and concentrate on wildlife alternatives (not removal), thus creating a far worse situation for the British livestock industry."
A sobering read

July 31/ Aug 1 It costs about £600 to have a garden supplying enough for two people, year round.

The Independent reports on what is happening in parts of the US - a limitless demand for expert help in turning gardens into mini farms. The article quotes a young man who, like others who offer expert gardening help and advice and whose phones never stop ringing, is helping people of all kinds to grow their own organic food: "It may not be the new Google, but it's absolutely the next great thing to hit the city environment. And it's growing like crazy."

31 July 2008 ~ Capturing methane from cows to make electricity

The Chicago Tribune reports that 2 farmers at a diary farm in Illinois have installed a methane digester which - several times a day - captures methane from the waste from 800 cows. This in turn fuels a pair of electrical generators and provides about a third of the dairy's electricity. It has also recently earned the farmers $24,000 through the Chicago Climate Exchange system by which they can sell carbon credits to companies that fail to meet their pledges to reduce global warming pollution. Read article - and see also below

29 July 2008 ~ "a better understanding of diseases present in wildlife ... is of key importance to develop control measures," says Bernard Vallat

The Director General of the OIE said on Friday. "....the OIE strongly encourages its 172 Members to put efficient monitoring systems in place and notify outbreaks of diseases in wild, feral or partially domesticated animals, as is the practice for all other animals. .
....There is clearly a duty to manage wildlife diseases. ....This relies mainly on the Veterinary Services. A technically competent, adequately resourced Veterinary Service is needed..." Read in full

29 July 2008 ~ Livestock Reduction?

Are we close to the serious proposal of getting rid of cows because the emissions produced by farm animals are - according to certain scientific papers - harmful to the planet? Some long-term readers may remember the rumours - denied strongly by Wolfgang Dreissl-Dörfler, the MEP from Bavaria who insisted that there was no EU plan to cut UK livestock numbers - of instances of cheques given to farmers during FMD 2001 inscribed with the phrase: "EU Livestock Reduction Fund".
The numbers of farm animals are indeed being reduced fast - by disease spread by globalisation, by outdated culling policies in tandem with no attempt made to protect them nor fight the disease at source - and by the sheer weariness of decent farmers harried by rising costs and hounded by urban bureaucrats.
If free ranging farm animals were to disappear and human-scale farms entirely replaced by factories, the potential profits from genetic manipulation and cloning techniques could, of course, be considerable.

29 July 2008 ~ "the not-so-small matter of the politicization of science"

The Manhatten Declaration maintains that there is "no convincing evidence" that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity cause catastrophic climate change. They may, of course, be wrong. They may perhaps be right - but what is certainly wrong is that the science can't be questionned, it seems, without incurring wrath and a charge of heresy.
But when, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out in 2005, "..the world is being lobbied to place a huge economic bet--as much as $150 billion a year--on the notion that man-made global warming is real. ... Shouldn't everyone look very carefully, and honestly, at the science before we jump off this particular cliff?"
Michael Mann's hockey stick bombshell was "riddled with... quality control defects" said the WSJ. What the article went on to call, "the not-so-small matter of the politicization of science" seems an ever more serious threat to the voices of calm common sense.

28 July 2008 ~ Bovine TB - As we saw with Bluetongue, vaccine producers can work miracles when the money and commitment are really there.

Lord Rooker said recently at an EFRA committee meeting that vaccination for bTB was a "trade catastrophe" and "illegal under EU law" - but that, although it could not be used, such research could still be funded. The winners here are not farmers, cattle or wildlife.
Vaccination was politically demonised two decades ago because of the EU's dishonourable insistence on finding a tool to maintain its trading differential. The inevitable acceptance of Bluetongue vaccines has hardly dented this mindset: profits have been much more highly prized than animal health.
In England last year, 19,800 cattle were slaughtered as a result of the government's policy. Compensation in the UK for this was £24.5 million (Hansard). But in today's economically unstable situation, we cannot afford such miserable waste of life and public money. Worst of all, livestock farmers now wearily reject any form of "partnership" plans with government so the future looks bleak indeed.
Yet no one wants to make money out of importing or exporting badgers . Why should badger vaccines not be developed and used? As we saw with Bluetongue, vaccine producers can work miracles when the money and commitment is really there.

28 July 200 8 ~ While we care about the badgers, lets not forget the hedgehogs

Concern for the fate of badgers might be considered alongside concern for the demise of the British hedgehog, considered by many to be a result of the explosion in the number of badgers across the country. One emailer writes today:
" I never see sight nor sign of hedgehogs in my garden, except flayed skins. This is because they are a favourite food of badgers...."
He suggests that concern for Mr Brock might be extended to the demise of Mrs Tiggywinkle, also a favourite British mammal. Perhaps it is time for a realisation that to allow one species to have no predators at all comes at a very high price for others. We need to care - and indeed accept - that many animals die horribly as a result of the spread of disease and of well meaning but disastrous human interference

28 July 2008 ~ "Farmers have had a rough deal from this Government who understand so little about the rural way of life. If we neglect our farmers we are going to really regret this now and in the future."

It is encouraging to read of the prospective Conservative candidate for Loughborough, Nicky Morgan, who has spent a day with a local farmer getting the lowdown on the real difficulties and pressures farmers face. She .used the opportunity "... to discuss a number of issues affecting the farming community such as Bovine TB, meat prices, the lack of support for farmers from the Government, security and crime and food production..." See Loughborough News

26 July 2008 ~ Jim Paice says the public would be "horrified" if they saw how badgers suffered as they were dying from the disease

Speaking at the Game Fair at Blenheim Palace this weekend (see Fwi) James Paice urged farmers with TB-infected badgers on their land to take photos of them.... "They suffer immensely. If we can bring this to the public's attention, we can change their minds about a badger cull." Mr Paice may well be right. Badgers are certainly endearing creatures, but when they have been excluded from the sett, wandered in misery, and succumbed to TB, they can look like this. (Photos taken by vet.)

July 26 2008 ~ No EU ban

Although the EC had tabled a proposal to SCOFCAH which would have made the export of calves from Britain virtually impossible, the committee rejected the idea of such stringent changes.
In an article dated July 23, the FWi quotes an official: "Even with this additional testing, it would not have prevented the export of these calves to Holland. The EU Commission is still keeping our TB control programme under scrutiny. A number of Food and Veterinary Office reports have identified perceived shortcomings - for example in the frequency of testing and the use of parishes as control areas. They may come back on this in future."
Lord Rooker's comment (Fwi) was "We were close to a difficult decision in Europe, but we got away with it this time."

July 25 2008 ~ Foot and Mouth Culling, Transport, Disposal, Cleansing and Disinfection - sanitised to "Field Operations"

Although not easy to find on the DEFRA foot and mouth disease pages, Defra is, "in accordance with our legislative obligations under section 14a of the Animal Health Act 1981", consulting on its 2008 version of the Contingency Plan for Exotic Animal Diseases. See webpage
. Those of us who, for well over seven years, have regretted the waste and illogicality of a national killing policy when the boon of modern technology offers humane and effective alternatives can only wonder at the mentality that ignores them still. No one bothers to deny anymore that modern vaccines are excellent In spite of our willing rush to produce and use new vaccines against Bluetongue, tried and tested FMD vaccines continue to be avoided for purely protectionist reasons in the EU. Lip service only is paid to them still. Similarly, easy-to-use kits employed on site for rapid diagnostic testing and linked to a central database have been used in the Eastern Bloc countries for some time - and yet we still have not caught up.
The consultation lasts until October 10th and what changes there are are apparently all tabled here. Included is an Orwellian revision. For "Culling, Transport, Disposal, Cleansing and Disinfection" with all the connotations of grief, terror, blood and misery those words evoke, now read "Field Operations".

July 25 2008 ~ "In England, the control and registration of bovine TB is not organised sufficiently...." Siem-Jan Schenck, Dutch Agricultural Board

We are still not sure what will be the eventual ruling on exports from the UK as a result of Wednesday's ScofCAH meeting. (update. see above) The Scotsman's Dan Buglass in an article today "Scots calf trade on horns of UK TB dilemma" quotes Siem-Jan Schenck, chairman of the department of cattle with the Dutch Agricultural Board, who says that no more calves should be imported into the Netherlands.
" To prevent further spread, Brussels should impose an export ban."
Some sources apparently have indicated the country would still be willing to import UK calves, as long as herds are subjected to an annual test for TB - but as we hear from one experienced farmer
".....if an area is designated 'low incidence' of TB, then the testing is four yearly! NO area would qualify - not even Scotland - unless it jigs up its testing to annual. Areas of high incidence are on annual testing but as 'risk' (i.e confirmed cases in cattle) decreases, so the testing interval lengthens. Some areas are on two year testing, some on three or four and then adult cattle only, no calves.It is a real muddle.
So Mr Buglass' assertion that "Testing for TB in most of England is carried out yearly at government expense" may be in error (clarification would be much appreciated). But certainly, testing all farms yearly who want to export is expensive and, as he says, "it might be cheaper to cull at birth than accept £50 per calf" At a time when waste is even more of an issue than ever, this seems a miserable solution.

July 25 2008 ~ "Inhibition of foot-and-mouth disease virus replication in vitro and in vivo by small interfering RNA"

The abstract of a new paper by Wang Pengyan, Ren Yan, Guo Zhiru and Chen Chuangfu in Virology Journal 2008 is likely to be of interest to those who understand the virology. Thanks to FMD news for this link.

July 24 2008 ~ "We must not be too English...."

In the bTB debate on July 22, Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury & Atcham, Conservative) spoke with great energy. While, like so many of us, he knows that culling badgers is not a panacea, he would have liked the opportunity to discover what impact a small and limited cull would have on the disease and would have used it in his own rampantly infected constituency. "As it is," he said, " I have to joke with farmers in my constituency about chasing the badgers across the border into Wales. The Government have given the Welsh Assembly autonomy and responsibility, but they will not give it to us in the west midlands." In answer to a PQ on the same day, Jonathan Shaw said that " if badger culls do take place in Wales, their effects will be considered as part of our overall TB strategy..."
Mr Kawczynski: (Hansard)
"We should be more like the French... We should make the Government sit up and listen to what we have to say...They must take more specific and proper action. ...."
He has written to Mr. Barroso, ("even though it was galling to me as an arch-Eurosceptic") in order to check the EU's stance on the Government's handling of bovine TB, adding,".... I wanted to ask Mr. Barroso and legal experts what are the human rights implications of not dealing with the disease in the UK?..." Read in full

July 24 2008 ~ "It is time for Britain and the European Commission to take a strong stance to keep clones and their offspring out of the food supply"

Joyce D'Silva of CiWF is quoted today in the Mail. The article reveals that a study published by the Food Standards Agency last month showed widespread opposition to clone farming and food.
"The research found that the more consumers learned about cloning, the greater and more widespread were the objections. "
Read the article (new window)

July 24 2008 ~ CLA President says "misinformed thinking" has caused friction since Labour came to power in 1997.

The Telegraph quotes Henry Aubrey-Fletcher:
"We have seen new regulation on animal health and welfare, meat hygiene, health and safety and many aspects of the environment which are disproportionate, often not scientifically based and all too often ineffective. The paperwork in running a rural business is growing exponentially. The key features of countryside - low population density, sparsity and inadequate infrastructure - are not recognised in the urban-centric approaches to modern information technology and communications, planning and public transport."
He added that the Government had steam-rollered through a doctrinaire approach instead of instead of listening to the concerns of country people "... until the global food price shocks during the last 12 months, Government was scornfully dismissive of any reference to food security and even in the week before the CLA Game Fair seems equally deaf to the CLA's innovative concept for food and environmental security," he said ".... Defra has a lot to answer for - it kept the food but forgot the farming. Defra has lost much of the on-the-ground expertise in agriculture that Maff once had among its officials." Read Telegraph article

July 23 2008 ~ Non-participation in cost-sharing. Non participation on "TB Partnership". New call for a truly independent body on Animal Health matters

An indication - if any were needed- of how far the gulf has widened between farmers and the government can be seen in this NFU release which reports that an "... industry stakeholder group has put its name to an eight-point statement of agreement following the non-decision announced by the Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, on dealing with bTB......Included in the eight points is a call for an independent body to take on the future decision making for animal health; a commitment of non-participation in the TB Partnership Group as announced by the Secretary of State; and an industry policy of non-participation in discussions on cost sharing and responsibility on animal health and welfare issues.."
Click here for the 8 points of the industry wide stakeholder group - while today's EFRA report's main points can be seen here

July 23 2008 ~ "This is not good enough - it fails to recognise fully the seriousness of the situation."

The EFRA Select Committee has published today a 26 page report which is a reply to the government's own response to the EFRA report on TB back in February. We have extracted here the major points that appear in bold text. Few punches are pulled:
"...The response indicates that there is little in the Government's strategy, beyond the current policy of surveillance, testing and slaughter, to tackle the disease in the short-term. This is not good enough - it fails to recognise fully the seriousness of the situation. ."
What the EFRA All Party Committee certainly takes for granted is that DEFRA needs "to regain the confidence of the cattle industry" and that "important discussions and decisions on cattle-based measures will be delayed should the industry not be prepared to participate in the work of the Bovine TB Partnership Group."
The pdf file in full can be found here. Key points summarised here.

July 23 2008 ~ An end to UK calf exports?

Today's SCoFCAH meeting begins at 3.00 pm. Although the EU Commission views the July 12 incident below as a "one-off" and says it wants to find a more "proportionate" response than a ban on UK calf exports, it is feared that the draft regulation for today's meeting virtually amounts to a ban. The draft says calf exports may continue only from regions that are "TB-free" and from farms which test annually. Since most of the UK is unable to give such an assurance (there are now few areas where the average TB incidence is less than 1%) the cost to export becomes impractical . See Fwi article by Philip Clarke

July 23 2008 ~"Information from the United Kingdom on the tuberculosis situation in calves exported to other Member States"

This will be the first item on the agenda of today's SCoFCAH meeting It seems some protective measures will be discussed. More on bovine TB at warmwell's bTB page.

July 23 2008 ~ What a mess....

One farming emailer writes this morning on the subject of bTB
"What a mess. I know Defra are very much against PCR, mainly because it would place the responsibility for disposing of the inmates of positively infected setts, on 'someones' shoulders. But interesting that they plan to use it in lab for cattle lesions, even when sensitive to many other bacteria within the complex than m.bovis.... says it all really. And very like gammaIFN.
The Dutch calves thing rumbles on. There is a second case pending - unrelated to the Worcs batch. The Worcs. farm has one of the top holstein herds in the country. ET work, big sales, big show winners.
Its location is only 5 miles or so from the Broadway area, where in the ten years up until 1997, the badgers caught in removal ops. postmortemed at over 80 percent lesioned. The highest of any area. That is unlikely to have reduced in ten years of no culls at all, plus those awful floods a year ago would have scattered them around even more..."
And if the farm goes under restriction again, "that will about be it. I am not prepared to go through all that hassle again. You can't run a business at all, Can't trade - too much stock - stress. I don't need it. We'll grow crops and rent out the steeper land. Or sell up and buy a cottage .... Sorry, feeling angry and fragile today. Always do when we come to play Russian roulette with these tests. "
A mess indeed. And no sign at all of any effective help or improvement from a government whose parliamentary answers are those below..

July 23 2008 ~Eco-towns - Top-down does not work

Eco-towns plan 'may be unlawful' says the BBC this morning. See warmwell page:eco-towns)

July 22 2008 ~ PCR test for use on environmental samples and excretions collected from badgers "ruled out" except in laboratory

In the course of his answers to Jim Paice, Jonathan Shaw said yesterday (Hansard)
"....while the PCR test specific for M. bovis was found to be only 50 per cent. as sensitive as the gold standard of culture, the sensitivity of the M. tuberculosis complex PCR test (i.e. a less specific PCR able to detect mycobacteria that are members of the M. tb complex) was increased from 70 per cent., to 90 per cent., by the end of the project. While such low sensitivities for M. bovis detection rules out the use of this PCR test for use on environmental samples and excretions collected from badgers, with further development and evaluation this test could be used in the laboratory to achieve faster confirmation and subsequent tracing of bTB infection in slaughterhouse cases.
Mr Shaw said that work funded by DEFRA " to validate the PCR test developed by Warwick University to detect M. bovis in the environment is ongoing" and added that a final report on the work will be published following its completion in April 2010. He said,
"If it is shown to be usable as a robust practical field test, consideration of its potential use in any bTB control policy will need to take account of the results of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial, which showed that localised culling was associated with an increase in cattle herd TB breakdowns due to the perturbation effect on badgers and increased transmission of bTB."
It is difficult to speak rationally about such an answer - particularly one that refers to a report that will not be published until 2010 when the disease is, as we see below, wreaking such havoc every single day. Warmwell.com would very much welcome informed comment. (email)

July 22 2008 ~ Bovine TB: More Parliamentary answers yesterday

The questions and answers from James Paice and Jonathan Shaw can be read here (Hansard). What we read includes:
• "....Studies TB99 and CCS2005, found an association between feeding silage and the use of grass feeding types for grazing/forage and an increase in risk of TB breakdown, respectively.."
• "....associations were found between low levels of selenium and a higher risk of an animal being infected with M.bovis. However, given the design of the study and the evidence that the action of some micro-nutrients can be substantially influenced by the levels of others it was not possible to conclude that the observed associations were causal....I am not inclined to fund further research into this subject. "
• " increased use of the gamma interferon blood test.... increase our ability to identify infected cattle..the enhancements to the TB testing regime introduced over the last two years (such as pre-movement testing and gamma-interferon blood testing) are expected to result in higher numbers of reactors being identified each year."
Read in full

July 22 2008 ~ Bovine TB in the Netherlands: 32 more animals infected and 60 undecisive.

One can guess how the Dutch feel about having been handed this horrible disease. According to our limited understanding of the Dutch article today on www.minlnv.nl, the six premises that had had contact with the original 12 calves from the UK have returned 32 positive results with 60 possible positives. A further 21 premises were provisionally quarantined. Tuberculin tests have been carried out on 4000 animals - and of the 27 premises originally quarantined, 20 have returned negative results. The central veterinary institute in Lelystad is carrying out further bacteriological research on the animals whose results were positive or not clear. Results are expected in the course of next week.

July 22 2008 ~ Bovine TB in Welsh goats - "many of the goats from that herd went to two other herds, from both of which stock had been sold on quite widely..."

BBC "Cases of bovine TB have been found in goats in Carmarthenshire. The Welsh Assembly Government confirmed the outbreak and said it knew of a similar case in England, but it is not clear if they are linked. The disease in goats is "unusual", and animal health officials are checking to see if it has spread to other herds. ......
....The GVS on its website said the disease was first found following a post mortem examination of a goat in Wales a few weeks ago. "The herd in question was in the process of being sold up due to retirement at the time the discovery was made," writes the society's secretary Nick Clayton to members. "And many of the goats from that herd went to two other herds, from both of which stock had been sold on quite widely."
The FUW's Mr Walters said it was a "worrying development". "It's another reservoir of TB that could affect the whole industry," he said. "The question is why and how did the goats pick it up?" ..."

July 21 2008 ~ "he seems to think that a strategy of ignoring the problem will stop the spiralling incidence of disease..."

FWi quotes the NFU Wales president, Dai Davies, on the subject of Hilary Benn's "complete abrogation of responsibility and dereliction of duty in England". He has, on the other hand, applauded Wales rural affairs minister Elin Jones's "courageous decision to believe the scientific evidence and adopt a holistic approach to eradication of bovine TB in both cattle and wildlife in Wales." More

July 21 2008 ~ The health risks from constant movement of plants and animals around the world...

The ad hoc "Intergovernmental Organisations Select Committee" reports today on the effectiveness of control of globally transmitted infectious diseases.
Diseases Know No Frontiers: How effective are Intergovernmental Organisations in controlling their spread? (pdf).
Most of the major UK newspapers today emphasise the grimmest warnings of the report and their articles suggest that the report considers the World Health Organisation to be ill equipped to deal with the threat of a pandemic. Lord Soley, the committee's chairman, (Hansard 16 July) praised the intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations involved. The recommendations in full can be seen here (warmwell.com html page) but tend to be focussed on well meaning advice and the urging of additional funding for international organisations. Alas, funding on its own without vision, expertise and drive tends to disappear so fast (as we have seen with DEFRA's own budget) that one is left wondering what on earth it was spent on. Unkind observers point to swathes of theoretical research, EU fines and unhelpful officiousness. There is still desperate need to catch up with methods of effective modern disease surveillance, diagnostic testing and management skills - as opposed to bureaucratic and political dithering. Indeed, what the report calls "...those Whitehall departments who are closely involved with the international dimension of global health..." seem still to be woefully lacking the expertise of genuine hands-on practitioners. Are the views of the virologists, medical experts and those who really understand how to keep the earth and its animals healthy being actively sought and acted upon?

July 21 ~ Could a superfood bring disease to our tomatoes and potatoes?

A report in the Independent about the "superfood" known as the goji berry, (also known as Lycium barbarum) which contains up to 500 times more vitamin C than an orange suggests that its illegal importation may be posing a risk to indigenous potato and tomato plants. Chris Hartfield, horticulture adviser to the NFU is quoted " The retail value of British tomato production is £150m, and potatoes are worth more than that, so the size of the industry that is under threat is pretty massive. If some bugs were to arrive here, they would be devastating."

July 19 2008 ~ "Why does it only get worse? After BSE, FMD, Bluetongue I always thought : that's it, we've hit the bottom now. Beggars belief, it seems there is no end in sight."

One much respected and successful commercial farmer, referring to the TB crisis among other things, wrote today:
"It all boils down to movements of animals on a wide scale. I feel the trade with animals, others than pedigree for breeding, should be prohibited as soon as possible. Moving them around in your own country is dangerous enough but sending them abroad is causing havoc and misery, for the animals and farmers."
Not everyone would agree of course. Yet importing food carries problems - and, in the other direction, the one case of the exported calves to the Netherlands and its fallout, is enough on its own to suggest that moving food animals on a massive scale can create far reaching economic problems. Then there are the rogue traders who care nothing for animal welfare and who ignore the extreme bureaucracy designed to make trade safe. Movements of animals by ignorant, greedy or cruel traders can cause animal misery and disease wherever they occur. Adequate checks are very hard to carry out. The present food crisis is beginning to make those not in denial realise that the present system of dependence on global trade is going to have to change fast. Food security in all its aspects has become a most urgent issue for Britain as well as for the rest of the world.

July 18 2008 ~" the measures taken in England are having no impact on the control of TB and Defra are unable/unwilling to heed the pleas of English farmers.."

We reported the export of TB infected calves to Holland on July 12 with dismay.
The Herald quotes Brian Simpson, development executive of the Scottish Beef Cattle Association,
"It is clear that the measures taken in England are having no impact on the control of TB and Defra are unable/unwilling to heed the pleas of English farmers desperate to control the spread of this awful disease. Scottish government needs to keep full control of our animal health policy and get the financial resources transferred from Defra to ensure we can deliver a full health protection service to Scottish farmers."
The next three months are usually the peak period for the exporting of UK calves to the Netherlands and farmers who depend on such trade are in angry despair . But it is hard to blame the Dutch cattle importers for such a voluntary ban. Unlike the UK authorities, they take TB very seriously indeed. The Dutch Farmers' Union is also angry that it was informed about the outbreak only this week. (See also bovine TB blog on the subject of an EU export document that specifically protects EU markets from Member States who refuse to comply with their responsibilities in the eradication of tuberculosis. "The actual document link has been 'archived' in the labyrinthine Defra website, but we hope to resurrect it," says the Blog.)

Thursday 17th July 2008 ~ RPA failures. British taxpayers will have to fund a total of about £348m in fines from the EU.

Food East's article about the RPA makes even those of us who have been following the chaos of the Rural Payments Agency (see RPA page) for more than two years, feel utter incredulity.
On Tuesday, the Public Accounts Committee released a 44-page progress report. Nearly 20,000 farmers' entitlements under the 2005 and 2006 schemes were calculated incorrectly and overpayments to farmers in those two years totalled some £37 million. Individual farmers who were overpaid in error have still not been told how and when they are to pay it back. RPA page

Wednesday 16th July 2008 ~ Britain votes to allow China to trade ivory

China now has licence - thanks in large part to the British Government and despite opposition from several African countries - to launder its large stocks of illegal ivory. As the Independent says today, this will "provide the impetus for further poaching across Africa, where more than 20,000 elephants are illegally killed every year."
Caroline Lucas MEP called the vote "a dark and irrevocable stain on the UK's wildlife conservation record overseas". See below

Tuesday 15th July 2008 ~ "A shift from an industrialised agriculture system to one based on ecologically sound principles and free from petro-chemical inputs..."

The House of Commons All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil has published its first report. See peak oil pages. Building on the advice of experts in international development its findings are as relevant to the affluent West as to the 'developing' world. It quotes a recent UNESCO statement:
"The status quo is no longer an option. We must develop agriculture that is less dependent on fossil fuels, favours the use of locally available resources and explores the use of natural processes such as crop rotation and use of organic fertilisers"
and agrees that ".... The food crisis is set to deepen if modern agriculture remains reliant on fossil fuels..."
The page 16 section on Resilient food production advocates "independence from external suppliers of seeds, fertiliser, pesticides and water, .... builds resilience and stronger local economies, health and wellbeing." Interestingly it appears to concur with the view that
‘External Input' agricultural models of Green Revolution and genetic engineering technologies fare poorly compared with ‘Internal Input' ecological agriculture, where productivity is based upon biodiversity and full and efficient utilisation of biological resources.."
The report is a timely acknowledgement that after the end of cheap oil and gas, business as usual is not an option. Nor can GM technology (see below) ever replace time honoured ways of working with nature.

15th July 2008 ~ Pesticides: Georgina Downs' Judicial Review High Court challenge against DEFRA begins today

Georgina Downs has been campaigning for years over what she sees as DEFRA's failure to protect rural residents and communities from exposure to toxic pesticides . Her Judicial Review starts today at the Royal Courts of Justice, in the Strand. It is the first known legal case of its kind to reach the High Court to directly challenge the Government's pesticide policy and approach regarding crop-spraying in rural areas. The Judge is allowing Ms. Downs to address him herself at the beginning of today's hearing in order to explain her reasons for bringing the challenge. Background.

14/15th July 2008 ~ China's illegal ivory trade is out of control

Readers are urged to spend a moment in writing to ask Joan Ruddock (or telephone 020 7219 4513) to ensure that the UK does not allow China to buy stockpiled ivory. Even such a tiny action can make a difference. Please do ask Mrs Ruddock to exert her influence in Europe and within CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) to oppose China as an ivory trading partner. If China were to import ivory stocks it would spell certain disaster for the world's remaining elephants since this legal ivory would provide a huge smokescreen for the illegal poaching and criminal activity. See letter in Today's Independent and the front page article on July 12.

Monday 14th July 2008 ~ bTB compensation: The judge not satisfied by the Secretary of State's stated position

A Devon farmer of pedigree Holsteins, David Partridge, who has in recent years lost 100 of them to compulsory slaughter, has won his Judicial challenge on the matter of the level of compensation paid by DEFRA. See BBC
"Mr Patridge's barrister, Hugh Mercer QC, had told the judge the current compensation scheme amounted to a "disincentive" both to careful cattle breeding and the introduction of bio-security methods to reduce the impact of TB on the UK's dairy and beef herds..."
Lord Justice Stanley Burnton - who has given DEFRA leave to challenge his ruling - said: "The Secretary of State has not satisfied me that reasonably reliable means of fairly compensating farmers with high value cattle at reasonable expense is impossible or impractical to achieve"

Monday July 14 2008 ~ "unrepentant junkies, howling for cheap petrol" - funding "a renewed mass terror"

Johann Hari, in a deeply shocking piece in today's Independent, quotes a woman from the Niger Delta
"I'd like people all over the world to realise there's a segment of humanity suffering as a result of oil production - ordinary men, women, children. They should think about them and not think simply of energy. Think of us as people. That's more important than anything."
The price of obtaining our fix of cheap oil in the future should be known. The article - and that in Vanity Fair too - reveal the staggering price in human misery and exploitation
"... two possible responses now. The first is to meet Mend (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta)and the Delta's demands: let the people have a fair share of their own oil profits. The second is to violently suppress the population with a renewed mass terror. Enter Gordon Brown. Last week, he offered Britain's help to achieve the second option. He offered British troops to "train" Nigeria's "security forces" so they can "restore order" and get the oil flowing fast again. ....He is reacting to pressure from you..."
Read in full and see original article at Vanity Fair, Blood Oil.

Monday July 14 2008 ~ " for decades, food has been a convoluted tangle of restrictive rules, in the form of tariffs, quotas and subsidies.." NYT

On June 30, the New York Times reported that "at least 29 countries have sharply curbed or completely cut-off grain exports ..."
Such export restrictions may help the town dwellers in poor exporting countries to have access to grain - but they will further harm their own farmers - still suffering from the effect of global policies since the 1980s when the World Bank and IMF, to reduce budget deficits, insisted on the lowering of tariffs and the ending of farm support programs.
Now, ".... the world is increasingly dependent on a handful of countries like Thailand, Brazil, Canada and the United States that are still exporting large quantities of food." The NYT article poses a question that all importing countries need to ask:
" Is it best to specialize in whatever food grows best in a country's soil, and trade it for all other food needs - or even, perhaps, specialize in services or manufacturing, and trade those for food?
Or is it best to seek self-sufficiency in every type of food that will, weather permitting, grow within a country's borders?"
Since the end of cheap energy means that the UK's huge services sector is not going to be able to pay "for all other food needs" the notion that the UK can be in a post agricultural era is indeed dangerous. . Yet excessive red tape and unfair miseries continue (double tagging and the huge losses from bTB are only two examples). Government has never been in such need of listening to and learning from its solid base of decent farmers and veterinary experts rather than its fly-by-night economists - on the subject of which, Simon Jenkins had much to say last week.

July 12 2008 ~ "community-supported farms helping to reverse a steep decline in local people's connection with the land"

Community-supported agriculture is expanding across the United States says today's Telegraph In New York City alone, there are 62 such schemes, including 23 vegetable farmers and up to 30 other meat, dairy and egg suppliers. Together, they provide food for 6,500 members who pay an average 17dollars a week for vegetables, which are delivered to various collecting points around the city.
"......A "share" in an organic farm's harvest costs on average between $500 (£250) and $800 (£400) a season and guarantees weekly delivery of a box of fresh, seasonal vegetables. ..... small organic farmers who might otherwise struggle to make ends meet have benefited from the guaranteed income, often buying more land with subscribers' money.."
Reconnecting people with the land, lessening a perceived deep gulf between town and country and helping people to understand where food really comes from can only do good. Far from being the 'fat cat farmers always complaining' -as portrayed by some political propaganda - many people working on the land have every reason to feel enormous and growing anxiety. Yet they are the custodians of vital skills in danger of being lost forever. We need urgently to value and protect our family farms.

July 12 ~ Rich enough to import sufficient food? For how long?

Suzanne Greenhill says in her Telegraph letter today:
".... We are currently importing 40 per cent of our food and this is set to increase as more farmers quit."
She adds that if the annual numbers continue at the present rate there will be no farmers left at all in Britain. "The EU and our Government are still stuck in the policy era of beef and butter mountains, and telling us we are rich enough to import sufficient food. We are continuing to pay farmers to remove livestock and act as park wardens rather than be allowed to produce food. What a disastrous waste. Gordon Brown needs to look in his own back yard and stop lecturing the public on food waste..."

July 12 2008 ~ Double Tagging "Defra is talking as if it has won the World Cup but it's not that clever..."

Concessions on the double tagging requirement have been announced by the government. Hilary Benn has postponed the start of the scheme from New Year 2008 to New Year 2010. Unkind commentators might suggest that this looks again like handing on the poisoned chalice to the Conservatives - just as with the miserable non action over bovine TB. The chief executive of the National Sheep Association, Peter Morris, is quoted in the Yorkshire Post: "Defra is talking as if it has won the World Cup but it's not that clever. The bureaucrats have agreed to stagger the pain of the introduction, but they haven't budged on the central idea."
As we have said many times now, the justification for double tagging was the notion that BSE lurked in sheep. That idea was exploded well over a year ago by quietly spoken words in Parliament (Hansard) itself - so why the continuing misery for both sheep and their owners? (See also warmwell scrapie pages for recent postings on double tagging)

July 12 2008 ~ A monster wind turbine is to be built in the National Park

near to the famous Glyndebourne Opera House. We read in one email today "This sheer madness of this decision leaves one speechless. Is this the government's way of making sure that we have all got the message that nothing will now stand in the way of future applications?"
It was Simon Jenkins who wrote a few days ago in the Guardian: "Climate scientists may yet be damned for the costly lunacy of new energy sources, such as wind turbines and biofuels." Full story on the windfarms page

July 12 2008 ~ bTB exported from UK?

While many dairy farms are on the brink of collapse because of bTB, - the Dutch Ministery must have been appalled to find itself warned by DEFRA after it was discovered - after the calves had been exported to the Netherlands - that the British farm from which they came was infected. So far, as a result, 27 Dutch farms have been hit with restrictions or 'have been locked' as the Dutch like to call it - and Holland has been free of bovine TB since 1994 . An Agrarisch Dagblad article (in Dutch) quotes Kim Heywood, director of the NBA
" We' re so sorry .... all calves from the previous two months are traced so that they can be tested. .as has happened with these animals which have gone to the Netherlands."....
The NBA, like the National Farmers Union, puts the blame for problems at the feet of the government. "Stock breeders do everything to keep this disease under control, but the government refuses to cooperate by dealing with (the wildlife source). .."

July 12 ~ California, free of bovine TB since 2005, is killing more than 4,800 dairy cows

- and 16,000 cattle have been quarantined. The article at www.capitalpress.info expresses what so many of our own farmers have to face - but in the UK compensation is on a very different scale :
"... It is tough to watch so many animals removed at once and know their fate. The $3000 per animal payment is also far from the true value of a lot of these cattle. For example, one of the herds has invested 50 years into genetic development, according to an Associated Press story, and sells semen and embryos nationally and internationally.The dairy producers probably wonder how to recover from that."
State officials investigating how the cows may have become exposed have concluded through DNA testing that two of the cows that tested positive this Spring share a strain of the bacteria that originated in Mexico. Some are saying - and one hopes they are mistaken - that Bovine TB could possibly have been introduced from the UK into Mexico, then on to California.

July 12 ~Bovine TB vaccination will not be effective in badgers for next 12 years says BCVA

The FWi ".... Lyndon Edwards, RABDF chairman: "Almost half of the £20 million funding had already been allocated for vaccine research, leaving only the remainder as likely new money.. We also wonder who is going to pay for and administer these vaccines, in particular that for badgers."
An email received yesterday comments on the fact that Mycobacterium_bovis contains the latin word for cow:
"I must admit that I had thought that bovine TB was misnamed and should have been called badger tb or meles tb, after all a sett is a great environment to spread an airborne disease.. Now it seems its (original source is) man all along. Would people's perception of bovine TB change if it was called by a non species specific name?"

July 11 2008 ~ Avian influenza Oxfordshire - The source of the infection has not been found

Defra has today published a final epidemiology report into the Avian Influenza outbreak confirmed in Oxfordshire on 4 June.
"The report concludes that at the time of writing (2 July) infection was confined to a single premise, and there is no evidence of infection on any contact or geographically close premises, or evidence of spread of infection to any other premises to date"
The source of the infection has not been found. This has not prevented the report suggesting that the source could have been
"Unidentified Avian Influenza in domestic premises in Great Britain, associated either by proximity or potential contact, or
Avian Influenza in wildlife in contact with the IP"
neither of which, since this is speculation without evidence, can hardly be thought helpful. However, what we found interesting was that "Clinical evidence from the farm's records supports virological data that the HPAI infection derived from a pre-existing low pathogenicity AI (LPAI) H7 virus present on the premises. Laboratory investigations provide support for this hypothesis...." and that
"Wild bird activity in general was described as being low around the IP by expert ornithologists. Overall it can be concluded that wild bird species found on the IP did not pose a high risk for introduction of AI."
(see post on Oxfordshire outbreak and also page on the Holton H5N1 2007 misery. In that case too, no definite source was found. Neither has the source for the outbreak of FMD in 2001 ever been officially discovered.)

July 11 2008 ~ "If we start looking at the history and essence of TB in a holistic, transdisciplinary way, we can see the big picture and find solutions.."

While the UK continues to dither over bovine TB ( and DEFRA admitted yesterday that only half of the money Hilary Benn said was being "ploughed into developing TB vaccines over the next three years" is new money, see FG) we read on the website of Arizona State University that research is showing that TB migrated from humans to cattle - not the other way round, as has long been assumed. The researchers at Arizona State University say
"The need to better understand this disease is becoming critical, especially with the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains and increasing globalisation spurring pathogen migration"
Their work supports that of the French Pasteur Institute's Cristina Gutierrez, an evolutionary mycobacteriologist whose work first cast doubt on the cattle-to-human TB link and its date range. Graduate student Luz-Andrea "Lucha" Pfister in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change says that since the human population is growing so dramatically and will soon reach what she calls "carrying capacity" pathogens and "opportunities for problems" will be growing ever faster.

July 10 2008 ~" using high market prices to scare consumers into thinking that their food will become too expensive unless they turn to GM technology.."

An article in the International Herald Tribune, after reporting that "Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta have all raised 2008 earnings forecasts.." and that "a wave of food-price inflation may help wash away popular opposition to so-called Frankenstein foods", gives balance on the second page by quoting Peter Melchett the policy director of the Soil Association
"GM chemical companies constantly claim they have the answer to world hunger while selling products which have never led to overall increases in production and which have sometimes decreased yields or even led to crop failure."
The IHT also quotes Geert Ritsema, a genetic engineering campaigner at Greenpeace International, who said that proponents of biotech crops are using high market prices to scare consumers into thinking that their food will become too expensive unless they turn to GM technology.

10 July ~ "There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the current food price increase. ."

If there really exists - as some genuinely fear - an ambition among the biotech giants to control across the globe the seed trade and ultimately food production itself, the present food crisis provides the ideal opportunity to drown out opposing voices. But there is evidence of what can happen when small farmers change over from their traditional farming to the use of GMO seeds. According to www.countercurrents.org what follows "... is a horror story of bad harvests, huge debts, increased costs for herbicides and fertilizers (in spite of the companies' promises of lower costs), and the suicides of thousands of farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala - among the Indian states that are hit the worst."
Marco Contiero, Greenpeace EU GMO campaign director said last month that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the current food price increase and any claim that a single technology such as genetic engineering is a silver bullet for our future food supply distracts attention from the real solutions.
"Farming methods that ensure higher yields, that are more climate resilient, which do not destroy natural resources and can provide better livelihoods for farmers around the world are the only way forward."
What must also not be forgotten is the possibility of the unwanted transfer of antibiotic resistance markers, unintended transfer of transgenes through cross-pollination, unknown effects on the soil - and a possibly disastrous loss of biodiversity. (See also February posting.

July 9 ~ " a Government who seem obsessed with regulation and centralisation.."

James Paice said in the recent debate:
" ...there is no reason why we cannot produce enough to meet the significant majority of our needs. We have some of the best land in the world and some of the most technically advanced farmers, but we also have a Government who seem obsessed with regulation and centralisation, and who therefore hinder rather than help those who want to get on with their business."
David Parker of the Western Daily Press: " The Royal Show...at Stoneleigh seems to have lost its lustre. .. It did more for farming and trade, education and training, without taxpayers' support, than the Government could possibly contemplate. Its loss would affect everyone who eats, as well as those in the agriculture industry worldwide...." He reports that "producers don't trust Defra as a friend of farming because of a surfeit of bureaucratic red tape and its failure on TB controls, and the recent confusion over foot-and-mouth.. .."

Wednesday July 9 2008 ~ The Cabinet Office report's concern with stopping emissions may be thought as helpful as those courtiers who advised King Canute

The Manhatten Declaration maintains that "global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans" and that there is "no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change..." A new book by Lawrence Soloman entitled The Deniers, "shows that not only is the fabled climate change 'consensus' itself a sham but the so-called MMGW 'deniers' are by far the more accomplished and distinguished scientists than those pushing the theory as a settled and incontrovertible truth..." Indeed, the global warming whistle blowers are becoming more vocal even as, since the direction of the heat change becomes less sure, the phrase itself is slipping from view . The PC phrase is now merely "climate change".
So the Food Matters Cabinet Office report's overriding concern with stopping "greenhouse gas" emissions while virtually ignoring the need to protect livestock and encourage farming may be revealing a woefully ignorant distortion of priorities.

July 9 2008 ~ "Soaring oil and food prices pose a "serious challenge" to stable worldwide economic growth..." AFP

The Group of Eight (G8) leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States, have been televised planting their trees and waving to "supporters". One wonders how many viewers feel relief that so much political power rests in their hands. Those without televisions and already starving may not care too much about "worldwide economic growth". As far as the UK and its self-sufficiency goes, one can only agree with the NFU (See Fwi) in its reaction to the Food Matters report from the Cabinet Office in whose Strategy for the 21st Century - although Executive Summary paragraph 16 extols the visual appeal of farmland and its usefulness to maintaining habitats - fails to emphasise the vital importance of food production.
"Farming helps to maintain the much-loved appearance and character of the UK countryside and its place in the national self-identity. Grassland and other habitats supported by farming sustain valued ecosystems and the species within them."
Its worry about "greenhouse gas emissions" immediately follows this paragraph and one sees no "strategy" in the paper to encourage the belief that UK farming and local food production are to be given a new and urgent consideration by this government.

July 8 2008 ~ "... this method did not do away with the badger population but TB was virtually unheard of. Surely someone in DEFRA is aware of how it was dealt with in those days..."

Another email pointing out that there is nothing compasionate about the decision to do nothing practical about bovine TB:
Extract:" DEFRA should insist that everyone in the country is on 12 monthly testing and then deal with the badgers as in the 1960s.. TB is destroying healthy cattle and healthy people. We have friends in Devon who are on 60 day testing - and that is a strain not only for the humans but cattle as well - and they are losing 12 pedigree cattle at a time. This is a closed herd of pedigree cattle started in the 1940's.
It is heartbreaking seeing what this is doing to the whole family, not to mention the cattle. ...." Read in full

Tuesday 8 July 2008 ~ "more ripped ears and infections than I ever want to see again"

The Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) launched its "Report on the implications of castration and tail docking for the welfare of lambs" (pdf) on June 30th which considers them "mutilations which should not be undertaken without strong justification". There might be thought strong justification presented by fly strike and the miserable effect of the maggoty wounds (see video on this Australian mulesing page). Chemical solutions can be highly toxic. Tail docking is illustrated by this extract from "Modern Farming" by S.Graham Brade-Birks (1950) where the experienced shepherd is explaining to the newcomer:
".....The smell of dung on sheep seems to give the blow fly the sign for which she is looking. ... We try to make these dirty trousers as small as possible by cutting their tails short. Can you suggest anything better?" (more)
If the government follows FAWC's recommendations how can the EU's implacable insistence on the double ear tagging, (and single tagging can cause severe welfare problems), be justified? As one emailer writes today: "I used a new tag manufacturer this year and have had more ripped ears and infections than I ever want to see again. I'm ashamed of the state of my animals ears and it's a constant source of worry with the fly strike season in full swing. Why doesn't this draw comments from the FAWC?"

Tuesday 8 July 2008 ~ Bovine TB. The British Veterinary Association (BVA) "expresses disappointment, but no surprise"

"... at the Government's decision to reject the multi-faceted approach unanimously recommended by the House of Commons Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRACom) to address the spread of Bovine TB within the cattle and badger population.
BVA President Nick Blayney said that the veterinary profession was "deeply concerned about the ongoing lack of disease control and the resulting impact on cattle and badger health and welfare.
"Be in no doubt," he said "to date measures directed at cattle alone have not led to disease control."
As for the increased funding for research on vaccines Mr Blayney said that, although welcome, " any progress is some years down the line." Nothing, other than yet another group under a new name -"the Bovine TB Partnership Group"- is envisaged for the foreseeable future. (Read in full)

July 7 2008 ~ Gordon Brown will now take his own variation of the old "eat it up - think of the starving" message to the G8 in Japan today.

And perhaps we shall, at long last, see a change to the very dangerous notion widespread in the government and DEFRA, that we are in a "post agricultural era". (According to Hansard, "Defra's own food waste "generated and composted by the Department over the last three years" was 2006-07 - 19.02 tons, 2005-06 - 37.57 tons, 2004-05 - 0.39 tons, "The Sustainable Development Commission have yet to verify government data for 2007-08," said Jonathan Shaw.)

July 7 ~ The price of phosphorus has skyrocketed in the last 12 months - and phosphorus is only available from a few areas - none of which is in Europe.

According to www.delawareonline.com last month: "... the price of phosphorus trichloride, an important industrial chemical, has already tripled this year. ... electricity rationing and export taxes imposed by China have driven up the cost of phosphorus from China."
Producing biofuel through corn production requires twice the amount of phosphorus as soyabeans, wheat and some other crops. As more fields are being used for corn to supply biofuel, more phosphorus is being channeled into higher margin fertilizers, rather than being used for feed. In addition, sulphur, processed into sulphuric acid, is a by-product of the oil and gas industries - which are now also in decline. Yet another reason - if more were required - for the UK to think local, think self-sufficiency and to think sustainable.

July 7 ~ The end of cheap non-organic fertilisers - another warning sign

Unlike non-organic fertilisers, animal or green manures and compost traditionally added to the soil fostered the existence of the microbes who help plants to absorb nutrients. It allowed earthworms to aerate the soil. Now, the universal non-organic fertilizer combining Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium ( 'Growmore' for example) is becoming more and more expensive. Its components come from non-renewable sources and the manufacturing processes are energy intensive. Its use does not add humus to the soil - and when the soil structure collapses agriculture collapses too.
Over-use of chemical fertilisers can cause damage when excess nitrogen and phosphorus gets into streams and rivers - increasing algae growth that can use up the available oxygen in the water, killing the fish and destroying the eco-system. As Simon Jenkins said in May, "the market has delivered in months what the Treasury failed to force on us, a better husbanding of scarce resources"

July 7 ~ What role should wave energy have in the Government's renewable energy strategy? Should they be a higher priority?

In January 2001, this memorandum submitted by the Open University Energy and Environment Research Unit to the HoC Select Committee on Science and Technology (now ominously renamed Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee) reported that
"Wave power devices might ultimately supply up to 20 per cent of UK electricity with minimal environmental impacts. Given the UK's maritime history and its extensive offshore engineering experience coupled with the major energy resource offshore, it would be perverse to ignore this option."
Alas, the UK Wave Energy program had been shut down on March 19, 1982, in a closed meeting, "the details of which remain secret." (www.oilgae.com) Yet the brilliant "Salter Duck", never used, continues to be the machine against which all others are measured.
"An analysis of Salter's Duck resulted in a miscalculation of the estimated cost of energy production by a factor of 10, an error which was only recently identified. Some wave power advocates believe that this error, combined with a general lack of enthusiasm for renewable energy in the 1980s (after oil prices fell), hindered the advancement of wave power technology." Instead, we got the white elephant of wind turbines rampaging and trumpeting uselessly across the most beautiful parts of the country crushing anyone who dared to raise their voice against them. See updated windfarm pages

Monday July 7 2008 ~ British food not biofuel

On the day that a second report by the Cabinet Office strategy unit launches a debate over how Britain can use its land more effectively to produce more food and reveals that 4.1 million tons of food are dumped each year in the UK, the Gallagher Report will cause the government to reconsider the targets set in April in Britain (see below) These required all petrol and diesel to contain 2.5 per cent of biofuels - and by proposing to increase this to 5 per cent by 2010 sent growers the signal that increased production away from food would be profitable since demand for biofuel would inevitably grow. As we see below, the EU's volte face will be very quickly effected. Professor Gallagher's report to be published today says that biofuel from non-food crops may be sustainable but concludes that production from food crops is not: the risks are too great to impose higher targets.
The Independent quotes Oxfam:
"As we divert more and more rapeseed crop into fuel, European industry is buying increasing supplies of edible oils from overseas including palm oil."

Monday July 7 2008 ~ EU ministers 'discover' biofuels not an obligation after all

In spite of the widespread belief - in DEFRA particularly - that EU rules are set in stone, we see today that EU Ministers can move fast enough when it's politically expedient to do so. A confidential World Bank report leaked in Saturday's Guardian showed that biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated. Now we read in this AFP article that :
"....What seems to be a stunning misreading on the part of policymakers in Brussels comes at a time when the image of biofuels has shifted over a matter of a months from climate saviour to climate pariah. Documents issued by the EU describing its ambitious energy and climate plan, unveiled in January 2007, have consistently said that 10 percent of all the fuel powering vehicles would come from plants by 2020. A closer reading of the texts by the ministers apparently revealed otherwise...."
The ministers have "discovered" that requirements for transport "do not speak of biofuels, but renewables."
"It was renewables, comrades..." as Animal Farm's Squealer might have said of rules that had seemed immutable.
"Are you certain that this is not something that you have dreamed, comrades? Have you any record of such a resolution? Is it written down anywhere?" ....the animals were satisfied that they had been mistaken..." (Chapter Six)

Sunday July 6 2008 ~ "We confidently expect this to duck the elephant in the room, and concentrate on more severe cattle measures...."

As expected, the Bovine TB blog yesterday addressed all the issues in the fullest possible way, giving particular attention to the EU working document SANCO 10200/2006 and to the responsibilities of the government.
The blog entry is important and has done much of the hard work of sifting through and summarising key points. What emerges clearly is that eradication of bovine TB is a statutory duty for all Member States and that eradication can be achieved only if measures to control the disease in cattle are accompanied by equally effective measures to control the disease in the wild. As the paper puts it
" ... It has now been reliably demonstrated that the persistence of an infected wildlife reservoir that enters into contact with cattle is a major obstacle to the eradication of TB. This obstacle should be addressed in tandem with the measures implemented in relation to the cattle population.
While future prospects for the development of suitable TB vaccines for use in wildlife are promising, considerable obstacles remain .... alternatives to vaccination, in order to address the role of infected wildlife in the persistence of TB should be implemented without any delay so as to allow the progress of the eradication programmes..."
The BovineTB blogspot commentary can be seen here. Many thanks to Matthew. See also "a few of the basic facts about this disaster which the BBC has not been telling us..." Sunday Telegraph comment from Christopher Booker

July 6 2008 ~ "Plum Island is the clear choice for the NBAF, and Homeland Security should opt to build it there."

Many thanks to FMD news for alerting us to a link on the subject of the proposed new high-security $451 million laboratory in the US that is to replace the world famous but ageing laboratory at Plum Island. www.onlineathens.com David Lee, University of Georgia's vice president for research is quoted as saying he favours ".. building the NBAF on Plum Island if that New York location is the safest place for it.
"If DHS believes Plum Island is truly going to be significantly safer, they should choose to build it there. I believe it would only be incrementally safer."
Plum Island is protected by more than a mile of water, and the area is home to few livestock that could catch the dreaded, highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease - facts noted in the Homeland Security report. "It would be irresponsible and basically abuse of trust in the government" to build it elsewhere, he said...." Read in full and see also below.

July 5 2008 ~ "wildlife is a major source of new herd infection ....may be a more important source than cattle"

Hansard two days ago. Jonathan Shaw:
"....the situation is quite different in the high incidence areas of the country where 85-90 per cent. of all confirmed breakdowns occur. Some herds in these areas are also infected by purchased cattle, but wildlife is a major source of new herd infection and in many counties wildlife may be a more important source than cattle....."
This echoed a Parliamentary Answer on June 24, in which Mr Shaw clearly stated that badgers are the main wildlife reservoir for bovine TB. See below.

July 5 2008 ~ "We want to see healthy cattle alongside healthy badgers"

Jim Paice and others are quoted in fwi.co.uk in the wake of the news.
If Hilary Benn really does announce on Monday that the government prefers to sit on its hands it maym by some, be thought that they'd rather hand the poisoned chalice to the Tory hopefuls waiting in the wings - some of whom are actually aware of the grim reality of the situation for farmers. In last week's food security debate, Daniel Kawczynski the member for Shrewsbury and Atcham in Shropshire, who shares the affection many of us have for badgers, said:
"It does not have to be like this. France has eradicated bovine TB. ...France has tackled bovine TB through a huge investment in extra testing, vaccines and a limited cull of badgers. If the French can do it, why can the Government not do it? They will not do it because, in their growing unpopularity, they are desperately worried about those marginal seats ..... my priority has to be my Shropshire farmers.... I have seen all the evidence that there is a definite link between badgers and the spread of bovine TB."
Nobody wants a mass cull of healthy badgers - but a targeted cull of infected groups seems the best solution when so little has been done in Britain to produce a vaccine, suggest treatments to keep the badger population healthy or keep up a proper surveillance. There is a callous inhumanity in doing nothing, in ignoring the suffering caused by - as Bill Wiggin put it -
"leaving sick badgers to crawl around, excluded... then slowly dying, riddled with lesions that start in the bladder..... we should be acting responsibly towards our wild animals, but the taxpayers are footing a £100 million bill each year for culling infected cattle, and this bill looks set to rise inexorably higher. This situation cannot continue."
See also pdf of the ISID paper on the badger trial.

July 3 ~ Not if but when for African Horse Sickness...thoroughbred breeders will not lie down under a no-vaccination policy

The African Horse Sickness page has been updated with an account of the Tattersalls conference on AHS held on June 23 at Newmarket, for which warmwell is most grateful to Mrs Adrianne Smythe (whom many long term readers will remember, also with gratitude, from 2001) The account must be read in full but one extract will give deep cause for concern. After delegates had heard a "riveting exposition on the development of vaccines to combat AHS and WNV" from Merial, the DEFRA representative spoke and received a "somewhat mixed reception" when it became clear that DEFRA's policy follows the EU directive forbidding a vaccination policy - such as has been so successful in the US
"....Dr Hartley explained that any representation from the UK directly to the EU to change this Directive would not be successful. ... any approach would need to be multi-national. A single national approach would fail...."
However, in what was a heartening summing up of the meeting, the Chairman of the Thoroughbred Breeders Association asked for - and readily obtained - the delegates' support for organising approaches to the EU, through the multi-national European Breeders Association, to get the outdated Directive 1992/35 changed. Please do read the account in full

Thursday 3 July 2008 ~ "a worsening global food and energy crisis pushing more of the world's people into poverty and destabilising economies..".

Reuters reports that the World Bank President, Robert Zoellick, in a letter copied to leaders of the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and the United Nations, has asked the Group of Eight industrial nations and major oil producers urgently to address a worsening global food and energy crisis, saying, "We are entering a danger zone..." Zoellick says the G8 and international community should consider a global reserve system for food emergencies similar to that of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which coordinates the release of emergency oil reserves by member countries.
Ahead of the G8 summit in Japan on July 7-9, Zoellick said 10 billion US dollars will be needed for emergency food aid and to help countries deal with the double impact of rising food and fuel prices. He says that urgent steps need to be taken to get seed and fertilisers to poor farmers, especially in Africa, in time for the next planting season. Read Reuters article.

Wednesday July 2 2008 ~ "... there's no relief in sight... no easy fixes"

Realisation that the end of cheap oil is indeed a grim reality could be seen in the Wall Street Journal yesterday:
"..it's not speculators, and there's no relief in sight... no easy fixes. The ugly truth? Peak oil isn't fringe anymore-it's going mainstream..."
However, there still seem to be many who cannot grasp the likely consequences and for whom the "solution" for feeding the population is increased crop yield through genetic modification. While we have no wish to throw the entire biotechnology baby out with the bath water, concerns about the negative health and environmental effects of rDNA technology (e.g.Potential Health Hazards of Genetically Engineered Foods by Stephen Lendman) need to be taken seriously. An increasingly disillusioned electorate may feel that it is mere lip service to democracy to say, as James Paice said on Tuesday, that on the GM foods question, "the ultimate decision must be taken by the consumer."

July 2 ~ Quick fixes come unstuck

Even though the Gallagher report may hedge its bets, Biofuel production has fallen under a cloud. Back in March, the new Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor John Beddington was reported in the Times:
".... It is very hard to imagine how we can see a world growing enough crops to produce renewable energy and at the same time meet the enormous increase in the demand for food which is quite properly going to happen as we alleviate poverty..."
While this has been repeated as a much-needed wake-up call about the use of non-food crops, Prof Beddington's view that it is self-evident that poverty can be alleviated seems very optimistic in the present situation. It is the expansion of the earth's population itself - presently on course to grow from 6.5 billion to 9 billion by 2050 - that demands humane and creative solutions.
Unfortunately, whereas social control and the removal of many hard-won civil liberties seems to be able to pass without much outrage, any serious mention of population control elicits the thunderous charge of illiberal thinking, right-wing eugenics - indeed what the New Scientist's Fred Pearce calls, "green fascism". No wonder not a single mention of it was made in Tuesday's debate. Yet, as the