The minister, like the rest of us, wants to eradicate bovine TB

I was rather hoping that the change in weather pattern might have ended the dry spell altogether and returned us to warm and wet weather for a week or so before summer gets underway, but it hasn’t happened yet and Wimbledon is a long time away yet.

We spread another bag of fertilizer on all the silage ground at Crouchlands which has not had any dirty water, and the grazing paddocks at Tillington.

It will now do some good if we get a bit more rain to water the plants and keep them going. The Tillington grazing rotation is now extended to 35 days in order to give the grass more time to recover in front of the young-stock.

The silage aftermath at Crouchlands has taken four weeks to grow two leaves, but is shaping up now and with a decent third leaf will add to the volume of crop, which I will cut in two weeks time.

The milking cows are tucking in to 30 acres of the aftermath and milk has increased immediately, as the quality of pasture and the fact that it is clean and not grazed so far this season, makes a difference.

We are making them graze it down with no slack, as I need the rest of it in the silage clamp. The maize is growing strongly, and there was much more rain around the Guildford area last Thursday, which was of real benefit on the sand.

All weeds, which seem to grow well enough in the dry weather, have now been sprayed off.

n The extreme self appointed animal welfare group ‘Animal Aid’ has launched a blistering attack on Agriculture Minister Jim Paice, demanding his resignation, branding him as ‘the worst animal welfare minister in living memory’.

Not only is this over the top, but it actually shows how this has little to do with real animal welfare at all.

Take the main charges, deciding to tackle bovine TB in cattle and wildlife, backing ‘sustainable intensification’ of the livestock industry, and declaring his support for the offspring of cloned animals to be ‘killed for their meat and milk’.

In reverse order. The Food Standards Agency itself has reversed its silly stance (much discussed in this column) on offspring of cloned animals, having realized that there is no way of tracing what goes on outside Europe, and having decided that there is no risk.

As we have discussed in the past, cloning has turned out to be a disappointment, being far too expensive, and not reliable in replicating performance. It is banned in Europe, and therefore difficult to see what responsibility the Minister has?

‘Sustainable Intensification’ is a term used in the Government Forsythe Report, and is a credible way of addressing the need to produce more food, looking after the environment and improving animal welfare; hence the term ‘sustainable’.

Intensive agriculture is in fact normal agriculture in the UK and Europe, and we should maybe recognise the fact, rather than pretend that it is some new or terrible farming method.

‘Factory farming’ and now ‘mega farms’, are other terms to describe large farms, as if size in some way makes a difference.

Well managed and well run large farms are usually at least as good as small farms, and often better due to more investment in better facilities.

Intensive or normal farming has provided the success story of high quality, plentiful and affordable food over the last sixty years.

To support and encourage sustainable farming it seems to me is eminently sensible, and Jim Paice ought to be praised for his stance and support of the challenges in the Forsythe Report; that is produce more food, with less environmental impact, and higher animal welfare.

It is a very big challenge indeed for the agriculture industry, and we will need all the help we can get to meet that challenge; government support is an important first step in that process.

n Then we come to the crux of the problem for organisations such as Animal Aid; the issue of bovine TB. To criticise a Minister who wants to do the right thing for farmers, cows, deer and indeed badgers themselves is mistaken. Jim Paice, like the rest of us, wants to eradicate the disease.

It is the disease that we are fighting. Spineless Ministers in the past have taken the easy route, looking after their votes as the problem slowly spread across the country.

This is a tough decision to make, and Jim Paice has stood solidly behind the logical and proven solution, that in order to tackle the disease, we need to tackle the wildlife reservoir.

Cattle measures alone will not sort out this problem, and as I farm in West Sussex with clean cattle, clean badgers and clean deer: surely the future? I watch as bTB closes in from the west and the hot-spot area in East Sussex increases.

Animal Aid have no interest it seems in my farm, where everything is healthy and free of bTB, it is only interested in protecting diseased animals, which infect others as the disease migrates through wildlife. Tackling this disease will be a very big task if the decision is taken to act, and it would have been a very much smaller task 20 years ago if government acted then. If the disease is tackled and a very big improvement is seen within a few years, I suspect that ordinary folk will ask the question ‘why did we not tackle this years ago’?

The silent majority have not spoken on this issue, and a disproportionate amount of notice has been taken of minority groups over the years. A few pop stars and celebrities have added their weight to some organisations, which the media enjoy. Despite the trials which took place not being carried out effectively, and interfered with by the extreme groups, which led to the debate over scientific interpretation, the latest information which keeps coming from those monitored sites, is showing very clearly now that the incidence of bTB is much lower in those areas, and falling.