Stop blaming the Bagders
Graham Harvey in an article in The Independent (30.Dec.07) points out that TB was a problem for humans in the 19th century that was eventually solved, not by drugs, but by better diet, better housing and better public hygiene.
He raises very interesting questions about the quality of food and housing of our sick livestock. For example, why do we feed our ruminants on grain? These animals like to be fed on good old fashioned grass – the green stuff that grows quite naturally and freely all over our countryside. Of course, it is much easier to find a scape goat, or rather a scape badger, to blame than to address the whole issue of industrialisation of farming methods.
He points out that “Industrial cropping, with its heavy dependence on chemical fertilisers, depletes soil organic matter and curbs the biological activity without which plants can’t take up trace elements.” As a result most food has to be propped up with additives in order for it to have any goodness. As ever, British people are voting with their feet as more and more look towards the farmer’s markets and organic box schemes.
The recent surge in the bio-fuels industry has had an interesting knock on effect. Grain is no longer a cheap commodity to feed to livestock, which means that farmers have started putting cattle back in the fields to graze. Which set me wondering, could it be that the bio-fuels industry will see a return to old fashioned methods of feeding cattle which, in turn, will wipe out TB and save the badger? I hope so.