FARMERS, landowners, vets and auctioneers have pledged to work with Government in developing a strategy for eliminating tuberculosis in badgers and cattle that is costing taxpayers the equivalent of a new, fully-equipped major hospital (£150 million) every year.

The co-operation is conditional on seven specific measures including the culling of diseased populations of badgers.

The NFU's TB spokesman, Cotswold dairy farmer Jan Rowe, said that the Government department responsible, Defra, had to "stop dithering," and Anthony Gibson, NFU director for Gloucestershire, warned that the region's livestock was facing irreparable damage because of a preventable disease which Defra was not allowing to be prevented.

A statement will go to the Government's chief vet pledging co-operation based on:

l Using the best testing methods available, identifying and removing infected populations of badgers, using vaccines to protect non-infected badger populations;

l Government to work closely with Irish researchers in urgent field-scale trails of using BCG-based vaccines to reduce TB infection in badgers;

l Road traffic accident survey of TB incidence in badgers to be extended to the whole of England and Wales and the results published;

l Subject to the simultaneous implementation of the preceding conditions, pre-movement testing to be introduced for all breeding cattle aged over 20 months moving off farms in one and two year testing areas with the Government meeting the cost of the tests;

l Farmers to be encouraged to isolate and test all bought-in cattle before allowing them to join their herds;

l The feasibility to post-movement testing to be urgently evaluated;

l In parallel with the other conditions, an urgent inquiry to be set up into the wide issue of badger population management.