Badger vaccination expands to Staffordshire, Oxfordshire and Devon

The Government-funded Badger Vaccination Field Force will move into parts of Staffordshire, north Oxfordshire and Devon in 2027, its second year, and aims to raise its coverage from 30% to 70% of the land in its three first-year areas of south Oxfordshire, north Worcestershire and north Shropshire. Farms in all six areas are being recruited over the winter, with vaccination to begin when the season opens in May 2027, project manager Dr Lindsay Heasman told Farmers Weekly.

Where will the field force be vaccinating in 2027?

The force, newly contracted by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), began work in 2026 with three schemes in the high-risk area, in north Shropshire, north Worcestershire and south Oxfordshire. Vaccination continues in those areas next year while the new ground in Staffordshire, north Oxfordshire and Devon is added, and Defra has said further areas are planned for 2027 and 2028.

“We are looking to sign up new farms in all six areas this winter with a view to beginning vaccination when the season opens in May 2027,” Dr Heasman said. She said the first year had seen strong uptake from farmers, landowners and veterinary practices, which had “demonstrated a willingness among farming communities to get involved and look at all options to help tackle the disease”.

Kate Bowen of Farmcare Solutions, the project’s national co-ordinator and delivery lead, has asked farmers, landowners and anyone else interested to register their interest through the field force’s own website. The expansion, the project says, is also a chance to assess how vaccination can be delivered across different farming communities and landscapes.

The strategy that ended the cull

The expansion follows Defra’s formal adoption on Thursday, 5 November of the refreshed bovine TB control strategy for England, co-designed with more than 100 farmers, vets, scientists and officials and aimed at making England officially TB-free by 2038. No badgers were culled for the disease in 2026, the first year in more than a decade without a cull.

Biosecurity minister Baroness Hayman of Ullock said: “Our comprehensive strategy will ensure the continuation of the end to badger culling, and prevent the spread of this horrific disease.” Alongside badger vaccination, the strategy expands Government-funded mandatory blood testing of cattle, aims to deploy a cattle vaccine by 2030 with its companion test, and starts a Government-funded scheme in November 2026 to collect and test badgers found dead in five high-risk counties.

The figures behind the strategy

Defra says new herd breakdowns in England fell by a fifth over the past 12 months, and the share of herds under TB restriction stood at 3.4% at the end of June 2026 against 4.2% a year earlier. Cattle slaughtered for TB control in the 12 months to June 2026 numbered 20,244, down 4% from 21,126 and well below the peak of 34,518 in the 12 months to April 2018.

The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has welcomed TB at its lowest level in England for more than 20 years but says that was achieved by measures that included wildlife control, and its deputy president Paul Tompkins warned that “optimism alone will not see us through this critical stage of TB eradication”. Professor James Wood of the University of Cambridge, who helped develop the strategy, said: “We’ve got a long way to go still,” pointing to the gap between the end of culling and the arrival of a cattle vaccine.

What does it mean for farmers who shoot and land managers?

For a farmer or landowner with ground in one of the six areas, the practical change is that vaccination is now the only measure on offer against infection in badgers, and the field force will be asking for access across whole holdings from May 2027. Its target of 70% land coverage in the first three areas depends on neighbours signing up together, so a shoot or estate that runs across several farms is exactly the block the recruiters will be looking for.

Gamekeepers and stalkers are also the people most likely to come across a dead badger on a verge or a ride, and the found-dead testing scheme is how Defra now intends to measure infection in wildlife without a cull. Defra has not yet named the five high-risk counties where that scheme begins.

What happens next

Recruitment of farms in all six areas runs through the winter and vaccination starts in May 2027, when the badger vaccination season opens. The found-dead badger scheme begins in November 2026, a new industry and government board replacing the Bovine TB Partnership for England is expected to be set up in 2027, and the first delivery plan under the strategy is due in late spring 2027, followed by rolling three to five-year plans. Farmers and landowners in the six areas can register their interest with the field force now.