Bovine TB: Economics research
How does Defra decide on what research to fund?
Research is funded in order to provide evidence based policies for control of bovine TB (bTB). The Independent Scientific Group (ISG) on Cattle TB provides advice to the department on future research requirements. Other advice is sought from specialists within Defra, from other stakeholders and independent experts. Some economic projects fall under a steering group where invited experts and members of the ISG give advice to Defra on the ongoing objectives of the work and help decide if a change of direction is needed.
Research projects
Laboratory and field studies are a major part of the bTB Research and Development Programme but in order to be implemented research outputs must be shown to be sustainable and cost effective. Recent research has shown the a molecular technique for M. bovis identification may prove useful in decreasing the time taken to confirm a skin test reactor as positive. In light of this the Department has put in place research (SE3118) to review which technique may be the most appropriate in terms of scaling up without loss of sensitivity, and to look at the economics of implementing it in the routine diagnostic culturing system to see whether it would be cost-effective.
Some potential policies for bTB include control of badger populations. In light of this the Department undertook some research to establish a valuation for the costs and benefits to society associated with changes in badger populations in specific geographical areas affected by bTB and alternative control policies. The final report for SE3116 is publicly available on the website.
Other published work (SE3112) has looked at the costs to farmers of a herd breakdown and modelled different bTB control strategies to provide an estimate of their economic benefit to GB. The report is also available on the website.
Ongoing economic work in SE3117 uses a badger bTB model generated by the Central Science Laboratory to attempt to determine the costs and benefits of various hypothetical badger culling policies to reduce the incidence of bTB breakdowns in cattle herds. This work has taken place in two phases and the report for phase 1 reported that it was indeed possible to combine the model and the economic analysis and recommended further areas of work. Phase 1 is available on the website and phase 2, which takes the work forward is ongoing.
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Page last modified:
July 7, 2008