I write as a dairy farmer in an area of Gloucestershire that has suffered badly from badger related herd TB breakdowns. The cost to my business has been in the order of £180,000 since 1986 and I feel this is a very unfair burden for me to have to bear.

  I would like to make the following points to the Select Committee on Agriculture on this issue

—  Farmers are very inadequately compensated for a disease that they are powerless to control.

—  The culling experiment appears to be developing too slowly probably due to lack of finance as much as logistical problems.

—  The time scale of five to seven years before full results of the experiments are known is too long.

—  There is every likelihood that TB will keep spreading in the badger population and will cause more and more hot spots for farmers. If this is so the eventual size of the problem will be daunting.

—  The longer any badger control outside the experimental zones is put off the more expensive the problem becomes. There is a danger of getting a "Treasury driven" BSE scenario with TB where refusal to invest now costs billions later on.

—  In the Wiltshire, Gloucester, Hereford area there has been a huge increase in TB breakdowns since all trapping action ceased and it seems that the Dunnet strategy, although flawed, was at least doing some good.

—  Greater openness by MAFF about all the facts and figures would help the general public understand the issue better.

—  The starting point for investigation husbandry effects should surely be comparing farms in hot spots areas that have least or no breakdowns with those that have most breakdowns.

19 November 1998