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Pembrokeshire's livestock farmers are waiting to hear if their farms will be included in a trial cull of badgers.

Despite announcing that a cull will take place to assess its effectiveness in controlling the spread of bovine TB, the Welsh Assembly has yet to identify the regions.

Pembrokeshire has one of the highest incidences of bovine TB in Britain but whether this will be influential remains to be seen.

In neighbouring Carmarthenshire, dairy producer Brian Walters believes the area will need to be significant to have any effect.

He recently had 18 cattle slaughtered. Eight of those were found to have lesions and the others had the early stages of TB.

Mr Walters, vice-chairman of the Farmers Union of Wales, says only one of those cows had been bought in, from an area clear of TB. The others were home-bred.

He says a cull is necessary because similar action in the 1960s and 70s had successfully brought TB under control.

But Trevor Lawson, of the Badger Trust Cymru, disagrees. He reckons that buying in cattle, or moving cattle around, is the primary cause of bovine TB.

He also says that a major weakness is the skin test which he says misses one in three infected cattle and allows the disease to stay in the herd.

"This is why it keeps coming back, year after year,' said Mr Lawson.

"The gamma interferon blood test finds infected cattle missed by the skin test and should be used.'' Meanwhile, NFU Cymru has commended the Welsh Assembly for agreeing to implement the cull. President Dai Davies said there has been a 750% rise in the number of cattle slaughtered last year compared to a decade ago, despite measures to control the disease in cattle.

"It is evident that unless a holistic approach is taken to deal with the disease in both cattle and infected wildlife, bovine TB will continue to wreak havoc in the countryside and its unremitting spread will continue,'' he said.

4:41pm Thursday 17th April 2008

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