More and more farmers are fighting bovine TB in their herds, new Defra figures show. Last year saw the culling of more than 38,000 cows across Britain due to the disease-the highest number slaughtered for a decade. This brings the total number slaughtered in Britain during the past two years to 105,078, and 79,365 in England alone.

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NFU president Peter Kendall believes the statistics prove that solely cattle-focused measures aimed at combating bovine TB are not enough. ‘We have seen almost 10% more cattle culled in Britain because of TB since 2011, and it’s creeping into new areas such as the North and East Midlands, Cheshire and the South-East,’ he says. ‘This has to stop.’

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