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BBC Countryfile criticises sheep farmers for not vaccinating against blue tongue

John Craven needs to ask questions as well as putting forward his own opinion

It's interesting that John Craven restricted his interviews in last Sunday's Countryfile piece over Blue Tongue to farmers who were not really able to express the reason for their reluctance to vaccinate. What they said, asked on the hop, was that BT was some distance away, and that few if any breeding stock were imported to their area, and this as clearly not a reason the broadcaster found satisfactory. Craven reminded me of the numerous times that he and his ilk have, in recent years, told us the human population was to be decimated by swine flu, bird flu, and any number of other health scares that the media seems to thrive on. There is a danger they will believe their own hype, and anyone in business or politics knows the dangers of this. John Craven's doom-laden delivery adds to the pathos of the event, but the main criticism is that failed to give a balanced view, nor did he try to find a reason why farmers are reluctant to buy the vaccine.

There are other important issues which were given no air-time at all. Can Craven guarantee that the vaccine has no effect on stock performance, and no effect on the meat from that stock? It seems to me that the vaccine industry is able and very willing to produce a zillion phials for all kinds of diseases, but these don't get any testing in the same way as other drugs. It would have been interesting to be told why we can be assured these new vaccines are all 100% benign. Why testing for side effects is deemed unnecessary.

One of the BBCs problems is that it's heavyweight interviewers and anchor people appear so keen to push their own opinions rather than finding out the facts. They cut the recordings to suit themselves and the opinions they wish to promote.

Sheep are susceptible to any number of diseases - scrapie, scab, orf, lice, lameness, liver fluke, toxoplasmosis, salmonella, brucellosis, maedi-visna, lymphadentis, as well as blue tongue - and this probably missed out other important ones!

The cost of vaccinating against the prevalent diseases is heavy, and adding more vaccines on the basis of 'might be' when the disease has never reached your part of the world is a difficult decision to take. With historic fat lamb prices insufficient to make a profit, this is a decision which has to be taken on economic as well as veterinary grounds. The shepherd has to select on the basis of some kind of risk assessment (that's a phrase JC would understand).

I don't know the farmers who were interviewed, but the farmer with 6,000 sheep, including pedigree Texels, who had BT last year, might just have bought some in from the continent himself, or be close to a neighbour who did. Well the risk assessment in his case is going to be very different to the Cumbrian farmer with a home bred Herdwick flock that is 400 miles from the nearest outbreak.

As for the price of meat - Craven needs to understand the housewife pays the meat trade much more for her leg of lamb than to the farmer who raised it. It's the trade mark-up, needed for the processing, transport, storage, advertising, retail costs etc. Of course the trade might decide that an outbreak of BT is reason for people to pay more, but not much of the extra will get back into the farm yard.

Countryfile has been given an important viewing slot, and John Craven and his team are now in a pivotal position to put the thumbs up, or down, for farmers. At the present time their thumbs seem definitely down, and they seem to be searching for things to criticise rather than praise. It will be good when, and if, they can find some positive news from UK farming.