{"id":5976,"date":"2014-04-04T06:31:20","date_gmt":"2014-04-04T06:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=5976"},"modified":"2014-04-04T06:31:20","modified_gmt":"2014-04-04T06:31:20","slug":"defra-continues-to-appease-the-nfu-over-badgers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2014\/04\/04\/defra-continues-to-appease-the-nfu-over-badgers\/","title":{"rendered":"Defra continues to appease the NFU over badgers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday evening's BBC Radio 4 PM programme had an interview with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/organisations\/department-for-environment-food-rural-affairs\">Defra<\/a> secretary of state, Owen Patterson, on England's failed pilot badger culls. \u00a0You can listen to it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b006qskw\">here<\/a>, at around 40 mins in.<\/p>\n<p>The consistently admirable Eddie Mair gave Patterson a rough, but unfailingly polite, ride by refusing to accept his (Patterson's) assertions that the badger cull pilots had not been a disaster for both badgers and cattle alike, <em>and<\/em> for his policies. \u00a0See <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2014\/apr\/03\/badger-cull-climbdown-stunning-unexpected\">this<\/a>\u00a0detailed comment from badger expert Patrick Barkham on the culls, and on what is now proposed. \u00a0It was much the same experience on Channel 4 News later in the day.<\/p>\n<p>Patterson is a complex character who resists pigeon-holing, as this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2012\/oct\/11\/owen-paterson-environment-guardian-profile\">profile<\/a> reveals, and he does seem to be in a difficult spot \u2013 caught between the science and National Farmers Union (NFU) intransigence. \u00a0And so the killings (of badgers) and the deaths (of cattle) are to go on, as there are to be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/plans-to-eradicate-bovine-tb-in-england-unveiled\">even more pilots<\/a>, presumably until they can give the right answer \u2013 that is, that they work. \u00a0But there are going to be vaccinations as well, around the edges of the cull areas.<\/p>\n<p>Whether this adds up to anything coherent is not my call, but the NFU will have been appeased, so that's one strategic policy objective that's doing ok.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday evening's BBC Radio 4 PM programme had an interview with the Defra secretary of state, Owen Patterson, on England's failed pilot badger culls. \u00a0You can listen to it here, at around 40 mins in. The consistently admirable Eddie Mair...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}