This the bland non-statement from defra when explaining this month's bTb statistics, which for a short period are available at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/tb/stats/latest.htm
Defra says:
"When making year on year comparisons of bTB incidence, it is important that these are not made in isolation but in the context of the wider disease picture over a longer timeframe. Whilst bTB incidence in Great Britain has fallen recently, this follows a steady increase over recent years. Furthermore, the overall level of the disease remains unacceptably high."
We are not taking anything in isolation. Nothing at all. We can read stats and also comments from our European masters. We see that Ireland have a handle on their problem and we do not. (see post below on how Ireland have halved Tb incidence and related expenditure)
Defra's latest figures show that this year's upward trend continues with the headline figure of 'New Herd Incidence' down during the period Jan - Oct by just 9 percent, from the dizzy heights of almost 30 percent ..... the figure which gave our minister such a splendid shield in March / April.
Herds under bTb restriction are again up on last year, both in simple numbers (+ 40) and percentages. And the percentage of herds under restriction because of a 'bTb incident' Jan to October was 5.67 percent of herds registered on Vetnet database. (To put that in context, the international bTb 'Tb free trading level' for a country is just 0.02 percent)
Posts have been a little sparse this last month. Apologies for that; your contributing farmers have been testing cattle and guess what?
Yup, three of us are under restriction. Again. Happy Christmas.
