麻豆约拍

Farmers and vets say they're concerned that government cuts to disease surveillance centres are leaving livestock vulnerable. DEFRA has closed 7 regional 'disease surveillance centres' and is cutting 拢80 million from the animal health budget. Some claim less surveillance means more risk of diseases spreading across the country before they're spotted - particularly new and exotic strains. Jon Cuthill from 麻豆约拍 South's Inside Out programme has been investigating.

All this week on Farming Today we're looking at the UK's agricultural imports and exports. Government figures show exports of agricultural products are worth 18 billion pounds a year to the UK, with Ireland, France the USA and the Netherlands our biggest markets... and whisky, salmon, cheese and lamb our most popular products. But in most areas we import far more than we export - the exception is drinks, thanks largely to the export figures for Scotch whisky. Charlotte Smith speaks to Simon Ward of The Policy Group, an organisation that uses policy and pricing analysis to develop theories on how Brexit might impact the agricultural industry.

A new test is being developed, which can identify TB infection from the blood, or milk, of cows. If it works as expected this is obviously big news in the fight against bovine TB, which costs 拢100 million a year and has led in England to the controversial culling of badgers.
The test is being developed by The University of Nottingham and its also hoped it will solve the problem of differentiating between vaccinated and infected cattle. Dr Cath Rees, Associate Professor in Microbiology at the University of Nottingham, tells Charlotte why this is a new approach.

Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Mark Smalley.