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Food Supply | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
In the most recently published figures the UK production to supply ratio for all food is 61% and for indigenous food 76%. These figures have been relatively constant over the previous 10 years.
All food %
Indigenous type food %
2005
60
73
2006
59
72
2007
60
73
2008
60
73
2009
59
72
2010
61
75
2011
64
78
2012
63
77
2013
60
73
2014
62
76
2015
61
76
The Production to Supply ratio is published annually in the “Agriculture in the UK” statistical publication.
Agriculture and Environment | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
We are committed to publishing both a 25 year environment plan and food and farming plan during this Parliament to support our twin ambitions of being the first generation to leave the natural environment of England in a better state than that in which we found it, and to become a world leading food, farming and fishing nation: to grow more, sell more and export more British food. The plans are closely linked and we are starting a period of extensive engagement with a wide range of stakeholders to inform development of the full plans.
Agriculture: Wales | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
Work is ongoing to understand the implications for the UK of leaving the EU under a range of scenarios. We are determined to get the best possible deal for the UK in our negotiations to leave the EU, which allows frictionless trade in goods and services and the opportunity to reach new agreements with countries around the world.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Freedom of Information | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
I refer the hon. Member to my answer of 24 March to question number 68042.
Badger Culling - [Mr Gary Streeter in the Chair] | Westminster Hall debates
One of the challenges of TB is that it is a bacterial disease, and it is notoriously hard to get vaccines to work in that context, whereas with a virus, if the vaccine is cracked, the virus is cracked—as with, for example, the Schmallenberg vaccine. We have to recognise that despite decades of medical research, the best TB vaccine available is still the BCG. As I have said, however, we are spending millions of pounds on research to develop an oral bait that badgers would take and that would immunise them. As the hon. Member for Newport West pointed out correctly, if we can get the vaccination right, a herd effect in badgers could pass on the immunity. We are also in the very early stages of looking at the notion of self-disseminating vaccination with a positive, contagious vaccine that could spread through the badger population. My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds is right that that is an important area of research, but I go back to what I said at the beginning: vaccination is only one of our tools for bearing down on the disease. I am afraid, however, that a badger cull is an essential part of any coherent strategy to eradicate TB. That is why we are continuing with the policy.
A number of hon. Members mentioned the BVA and its comments on the free shooting of badgers. As I said before, I live quite near Bushy Park, across the bridge from Kingston, and every autumn a sign is put on the gate stating, “The park is closed today because a deer cull is going on.” No one bats an eyelid. People do not say, “This is terrible”, and we do not get protesters running around dressed up as deer or in the middle of the night, trying to disrupt things. People seem to accept that.
I put it to hon. Members that we have to keep some sense of perspective. We are trying to fight a difficult disease and the veterinary advice is clear: a badger cull has to be part of any approach to eradicating that disease. Is it really that different from the approach that we take to controlling other wildlife, such as foxes, or deer in royal parks?
Badger Culling - [Mr Gary Streeter in the Chair] | Westminster Hall debates
I extend my gratitude to everyone who has returned to the debate, as some hon. Members will have detected that I was getting towards the end of my contribution. I have gone through my notes to check whether I overlooked anything earlier.
To pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds on the culls that have completed their four years, as I explained just before we suspended the debate, at the end of last year we consulted on having low-level maintenance culling to keep the population in check. That would very much be a small operation with much-reduced numbers—not like the culls we had for the first four years. My hon. Friend also mentioned deer and other species, and he is right that wild deer can carry TB, but our veterinary advice is that their role in transmitting TB is significantly lower than that of badgers, because of their nature and how they move about. TB spreads less freely among deer, because badgers live underground in close proximity to one another. Nevertheless, deer are a potential concern, but we believe badgers to be far more prevalent in spreading the disease, and do so in far greater numbers, in particular in the south-west, the high-risk area, so that is where we are focusing our attention at the moment.
The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross asked us to learn lessons from other parts of the UK. As I pointed out in his debate on badger culling and bovine TB, Scotland is officially TB-free, but Scotland has an incredibly low badger population. It is the only part of the UK not to have a large badger population.
In Northern Ireland, which was mentioned, the approach is to trap, test, and vaccinate or remove. We follow the evidence from that approach closely, but the difficulty is that there are no good diagnostics for picking up the disease, as I said earlier. The people in Northern Ireland might therefore release up to 40% of badgers that have the disease, although they would not have detected it. In addition, they could be vaccinating and re-releasing badgers that had already had the disease. That approach is by no means perfect, even though superficially it sounds logical.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Workington (Sue Hayman), mentioned costs. All I can say is that in year 1, the costs were higher—a huge amount of surveillance and post-mortem testing was going on, we had the independent expert panel and policing costs were higher—but the costs have been reducing as we have rolled out the cull. We also have to put that in context: every year, the disease is costing us £100 million, so doing nothing is not an option.
One arrested on suspicion of attempted murder following Penzance knife, bat and crowbar attack
Two taken to hospital following Newbridge smash
Woman seriously injured in Penzance bike collision
Trade in Animals and Related Products Regulations 2011: Reviews | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
Defra began its review of the Trade in Animals and Related Products (TARP) Regulations 2011 with formal and informal consultation with customers in October 2015. We now anticipate completion in Spring 2017.
Glyphosate: Safety | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
In November 2015, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) reassessed glyphosate to take into account scientific developments since it was approved and identified no safety concerns. UK experts agree that glyphosate meets the safety standards required to be approved for use in farming.
Rescue operation after man falls 20ft over cliffs in West Cornwall
Fire breaks out at Asda store
Number of rough sleepers soar in Cornwall
Armed police respond to suspected firearms incident in Penzance
Bovine Tuberculosis: Disease Control | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
Of the 421 carcasses of badgers culled by controlled shooting in 2013 – 2016 that have undergone post-mortem examination the distribution of these by year is as follows:
Number of carcases examined
Number with evidence of multiple shots
2013
158
8
2014
234
11
2015
28
6
2016
1
0
Total
421
25
Bovine Tuberculosis: Disease Control | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
The report on monitoring TB prevalence levels in cattle herds inside, and up to 2km outside, the first two badger control areas for the first two years of badger control is available here:
Agriculture: Subsidies | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
We understand the importance of providing certainty for farmers on funding, which is why the Government has guaranteed CAP Pillar I funding until the end of the Multiannual Financial Framework in 2020. Further details on arrangements for after 2020 will be given in due course and our intention is to do so sufficiently in advance of 2020 to give farmers time to plan.
Agriculture | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
Our ambition is to be a world-leading food, farming and fishing nation that grows more, sells more and exports more of our food around the world. To this end, we are committed to publishing a 25 year food and farming plan and in order to develop this we are currently gathering views from right across industry and all parts of the UK.
Bovine Tuberculosis: Disease Control | Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | Written Answers
The Low, Edge and High-Risk Bovine Tuberculosis areas have only been in place since 2013. However, figures in the table below give figures retrospectively assuming the areas.
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
Edge
69
113
23
35
71
82
194
191
205
High
681
617
14
27
31
40
45
44
41
Low
36
44
42
36
22
52
32
45
42
The total number of herds subject to interferon gamma test in 2008 and 2009 are higher than in subsequent years because mandatory IFN-γ testing policy of animals that have been skin tested twice with inconclusive results became redundant and ended in 2010, when all three countries of Great Britain moved to a stricter policy of removing as reactors all those animals that failed to resolve at their first skin retest.
Between 2009 and 2016, the number of samples (animals) tested in England has quadrupled, with the largest increase taking place in the Edge Area.
IFN-γ testing of TB breakdown herds in the HRA is also about to be significantly increased from April 2017.