We have been waiting for the TB balloon to go up, as Jeremy Clarkson let rip into some of the more 'unusual' systems, farmers and in particular livestock farmers, have to endure in his series on Amazon Prime.
Presently we are subjected to a blizzard of bad publicity, often headed by the farming unions and levy payers' representatives apologising for our very existence. Shoot a cow, plant a tree and sell your carbon credits so that the great and the good can Carry on Partying. Or attending far flung jamborees in pursuit of Net Zero.
In series 2 of Clarkson's farm, Jeremy met the crazy situation of a fledgling business which had lost half its dairy herd . The cause, was definitely badger related. So in typical Clarkson speke, he had the answer:
"We can shoot them?”
"No, you can't do that" (shock horror from the farm's agent )
"I'll run over them with my big tractor"
"No, that would never do"
"I'll fumigate their sett then”.
"Nope. Their ancestral home has a grade 1 listing. You can't do that either."
Jeremy very accurately described badgers as 'like teenagers'. Out all night, wreck land and crops, eat his hedgehogs, spread a very serious disease, then come home and sleep all day. And are untouchable.
The first casualty to cross Jeremy's path was a young dairy farmer, Emma Ledbury, who had just set up a milk vending business. But in this week's Farmers Guardian, the second is young Kaleb Cooper who has invested in 21 dairy cows.
The farm on which they now reside, has been hit with a TB breakdown, so the merry- go- round of testing and more testing, (of cattle at least) slaughter and stress, goes on. And on. Welcome to our world.
These two cases are high profile, and Amazon Prime's series with Jeremy heading it is an ideal vehicle to show the crazy, expensive and futile situation which we have endured for more years than we have been scribbling this blog. Which sadly is approaching two decades.
We have told the stories of whole herd slaughter in Staffordshire, and individual cases of named companion cattle . The end is the same. We shoot the big black and white ones, and ignore the smaller, endemically diseased black and white ones.
