Organic farmers challenge cattle TB testing

[S.Annadana]

Organic farmers challenge cattle TB testing
By Gazette Reporter
Comment
The Government's controversial system of testing cattle for TB is under challenge in a test case at the High Court today.

Organic farmers have launched an application for judicial review to save 100 animals that tested positive for the disease.

The Somerset-based Higher Burrow Organic Farming Partnership, which operates near Martock, is demanding re-tests after contradictory results emerged from the simultaneous use of the skin and gIFN examinations by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

advertisementThe partnership, which provides milk to supermarkets, is challenging the results because while all 100 livestock tested positive after the gamma interferon (gIFN) blood test, just three were positive after a skin test.

Lawyers Clarke Willmott, who are also working on behalf of a farmer in Wiltshire who is in a similar situation, claim the two tests gave results too inconsistent to be credible and said the herd deserved to be re-checked.

Defra sought to destroy the animals on January 22, but then gave an undertaking not to cull them until the outcome of the High Court challenge.

Tim Russ, a partner and agricultural law expert at Clarke Willmott, said: "Tests for bovine TB were conducted using the skin test and the gamma interferon (gIFN) test.

"Whilst the skin test showed just two or three cases of TB, the gIFN test showed 100. This suggests that there is something seriously wrong with one or both of these tests.

"The slaughter of these 100 animals would cost the Higher Burrow Organic Farming Partnership more than GBP100,000 and we simply wish Defra to re-test before these animals are removed unnecessarily."

If the High Court backs the case for a re-test Defra may have to offer second chances to other farmers and review how the test is deployed.

A Defra spokeswoman said: "The gamma interferon diagnostic test for bovine TB is used around the world and has been validated in GB conditions."