Posts Tagged agriculture
Badger Culling Won’t Help Fight Bovine TB: It May Even Make Things Worse
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Agriculture on July 18, 2011
This morning the government is due to announce its decision on the badger cull intended to reduce bovine tuberculosis (bTB). However, new research which has only just been published, shows that culling could not only be a waste of time, money and life, but it could actually make the problem worse.
After I posted links to related stories on Twitter yesterday and saw the response it garnered, I decided to stop the presses at the Review and write this post instead of the one I had originally planned, which was a look at the macrobiotic behaviour of the flu virus cell when exposed to various forms of Nestle chocolate and how that may be employed against the expansion of Tesco.
So, joking aside (yes that was a joke), the issue of badgers causing bTB in herds of cattle is actually very serious, and has been around for many years now. Over the last 10 years, it’s estimated to have cost the British taxpayer around £500 million and caused no end of heartache to the affected farmers.
The problem is that roaming wild badgers can spread bTB to herds of cattle, and farmers organisations claim that killing the badgers will vastly reduce the spread and impact of the disease. Consequently, the UK government is having to make a decision as to whether to let farmers in western England embark on a shooting spree to cull the said badgers.
In 2009, 1 in 10 herds were infected with bTB, resulting in the premature slaughter of 35,000 animals. According to Defra’s chief scientific advisor, shooting badgers that may infect a herd is the most cost effective way of stopping the spread of the disease.
Recent research, however, which has been undertaken over the last 10 years, has found that culling around 11,000 badgers only reduced the number of bTB cases by 12-16%. It also found that badgers who survive the cull are likely to wander over further areas as their social structure is upset. This then has the effect of spreading the disease over an even greater area, a consequence known as the ‘perturbation’ effect.
These new findings are based on the analysis of data from a study by the Department of Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra): The 10-year Randomised Badger Culling Trial. The man behind the trials, Lord Krebs, said “You leave 85% of the problem still there, having gone to a huge amount of trouble to kill a huge number of badgers. It doesn’t seem to be an effective way of controlling the disease”.
While the farming community is understandably desperate to find a solution to this problem, they really should take note of this new research and – at worst – delay the forth-coming cull. If the government does grant them permission, they will be given practically free reign to exterminate as many badgers as they can find.
The National Trust is running an experiment over the next four years to see how effective trapping and vaccinating badgers may prove to be. There is also hope an oral vaccine will soon be developed, thus reducing the cost and effort considerably. Unfortunately this method can cost up to 10 times as much as shooting, which also raises the question of the farmers’ motivation for the badger cull; if it’s solely a cost issue, then that’s really sad. Hopefully the government will hold fire (pardon the pun) and see that a solution is on the way and mass extermination of the (often perfectly healthy) badgers is a draconian answer and will prove very unpopular.
The badger trust claims that cattle to cattle transmission is still the main cause of disease spreading to new areas and that the phenomenon of badgers spreading the disease is still not fully understood. They also say, “foxes, squirrels, rats and deer are among wildlife known to suffer from TB. But in 2008 Defra said two research projects had concluded that except for two species of deer the likelihood of other mammals (excluding badgers) being a significant source of infection to cattle was extremely low. It’s worth noting that all six species of deer in the UK suffer from TB”. It’s also worth mentioning that with the pasteurisation process, bTB will not pass to humans through milk.
Many scientists and conservationists, including the esteemed naturalist David Attenborough, argue that finding a vaccination against the disease is the only truly sustainable way to control bTB.
I hate to see animals killed for no good reason and a cull never sat well with me, but I was told by the powers-that-be that it was best for the long-term. This looks like it isn’t the case anymore, so I can’t sit idly by and watch thousands of innocent creatures slaughtered for no good reason. Hence this post.
If the decision does go against the poor old badgers today there is likely to be a legal challenge. If that happens, please spread the word about this new research and help get the decision reversed. Thanks.
GR
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Photo courtesy of The Badger Trust
Antibiotic Resistance: Will We Never Learn?
Posted by Gareth Eynon in Agriculture on June 20, 2011
It has been reported this week that even in the face of rising antibiotic resistance among livestock, meat farmers have increased the use of these drugs by up to eight times over the last decade.
Well that’s hardly surprising – I hear you utter – surely that’s because livestock production has also increased over the same period? Wrong. Livestock production has actually fallen during this time: down 27% for pigs, 11% for poultry and 10% for cattle.
Ok so what? We’re only on the brink of yet another agricultural disaster, are we not? Nothing much else is going to affect us, the public, more than perhaps a rise in the price of meat, right? Oh, if only it were that simple…
The danger here comes from the fact that the animals we eat are routinely filled to the eyeballs with antibiotics (among other things). Consequently, the bacteria are comparing notes, attending drugs resistance training camps and then sticking two fingers up at us and singing “come and ‘ave a go if you think your ‘ard enough!” Meanwhile, as this resistance grows we are steadily running out of options.
The other concerning issue is that it’s not just the animals who are affected. As we eat the meat, drink the milk and scramble the eggs from these creatures, we too ingest remnants of the antibiotics, allowing the Great Antibiotic Resistance movement to continue within our bodies too.
Some of the bugs to develop antibiotic resistance include: E.coli – the recent German outbreak was from an antibiotic-resistant strain, which although from bean sprouts this time, killed nearly 40 people and highlighted the dangers of this bacteria. MRSA – only last month a new form of MRSA was found in milk. Neisseria gonorrhoeae – in 2010 the gonorrhoea bacteria became resistant to cephalosporin; the last effective drug in the treatment of this STD. Non-resistant, but less effective drugs now have to be used.
Why is this happening?
The trouble here is that farmers have corralled themselves into a vicious circle; as the animals receive bigger and bigger does of antibiotics, they lose the natural ability to fight off disease, so they then require even more drugs and so on and so on.
The pressures put on farmers by the supermarkets to drive down the cost of meat has led to more animals being stored in ever-increasingly cramped conditions – perfect for breeding disease. Also, let’s not forget that drug companies are making huge profits off the sale of these antibiotics so they promote them to the farmers as being essential.
Of course we can’t lay all the blame at the feet of the supermarkets and the drug companies – much as I’d like to. We, the consumers, are also partly responsible: our demand for cheap meat is driving the supermarkets and the only people they will listen to, the only ones who can make them change their ways are us; their customers.
What can we do about this problem?
If you are worried about antibiotics in your meat – as you should be – then the are a number of actions you can take:
- Buy less meat. Get more creative with your cooking and take the pressure off our meat farmers.
- Don’t buy cheap meat – it tastes horrible, it will no doubt be stuffed full of more rubbish than usual and the animal will probably have lived a life of suffering.
- Buy organic meat and support this industry. Yes it’s more expensive, but what price do you put on, say, not losing a member of your family to E.coli?
- Go vegetarian. I’m not, but it has long been recognised that a vegetarian diet is better for you and the planet.
- Make yourself heard. Protest against the current practices by lobbying your MP or having a pop at the supermarkets. There are many imaginative ways to take action here.
On the subject of eating vegetarian; it’s probably worth remembering that this alone will not protect you. Even level 1 vegans (those who don’t eat anything that casts a shadow) are not safe from the fallout of this. Everybody gets sick at sometime in his or her life and most people will have benefited from taking antibiotics.
If we keep going down our current path we will eventually run out of effective antibiotics and find ourselves resorting to Terrible Tudor and Vile Victorian cures for what were once easily curable diseases; all for nothing more than cheap meat. Crazy.
Of course there’s a place for antibiotics in farming. I would never advocate letting these animals suffer if disease were to break out, or likewise watching a farmer lose his business as his livestock perishes. But please people, can’t we actually wait until the disease does breakout, then treat it. Imagine if I were to give my two young girls a dose of Calpol every morning with their Cornflakes, just in case they feel ill later in the day. Bloody madness.
GR
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Photos courtesy of graur razvan ionut and think4photo
