Bovine TB strategy adopted with England to be TB-free by 2038

The Government has formally adopted the bovine TB strategy for England, committing to eradicate the disease by 2038 with vaccines for cattle and badgers in place of culling. The response, published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) at one minute past midnight on Thursday, 5 November, confirms that 2026 was the first year in more than a decade in which no badgers were culled.

What does the adopted strategy commit to?

The co-designed strategy, drawn up by more than 100 farmers, vets, scientists and officials and published in June, now stands as government policy. It sets five priorities: cutting cattle-to-cattle transmission, making better use of TB data, preventing infection through new tools, putting farmers and vets in the driving seat locally, and reducing disease risk from the wider environment.

Work already under way includes the final field trials of a cattle vaccine, with a marketing authorisation application for CattleBCG submitted to the Veterinary Medicines Directorate and a contract awarded to Thermo Fisher for the companion skin test that tells infected cattle from vaccinated ones. The announcement states an ambition to deploy cattle vaccination by 2030. Mandatory interferon-gamma blood testing will expand, a pilot of privately funded testing is running, and the new Badger Vaccination Field Force has opened areas in North Shropshire, North Worcestershire and South-East Oxfordshire, with more to follow in 2027 and 2028.

The numbers behind the announcement

Herds losing TB-free status fell by a fifth over the past year, and 3.4% of English herds were under restriction at the end of June against 4.2% a year earlier. Cattle slaughtered for TB control fell 4% to 20,244 in the 12 months to June, against a peak of 34,518 in 2018.

Biosecurity minister Baroness Hayman said: “No farmer should have to accept this disease as an unavoidable part of their livelihood,” adding that the strategy “will ensure the continuation of the end to badger culling, and prevent the spread of this horrific disease”.

What does it mean on the farm and in the field?

For keepers, stalkers and farmers who shoot, the shift is from the rifle to the trap and the syringe: the licensed culling that employed trained shooters across the High Risk Area has ended, and badger control now means cage-trap vaccination delivered by the new field force. A found-dead badger collection scheme opens this November in five High Risk Area counties, and wild deer surveillance projects in Exmoor, Cornwall and Oxfordshire are gathering samples alongside existing deer management, putting stalkers directly into the disease picture.

The response also opens the question of compensation, which costs £25m to £30m net a year, suggesting payments could be linked more clearly to biosecurity and risk-based trading; the detail is for the first delivery plan, due in late spring 2027.

What happens next

A new industry-government board will replace the Bovine TB Partnership for England, with a public appointments process starting later this year and the board established in 2027. Its first delivery plan is being drawn up by the existing co-design Steering Group for publication in late spring 2027, and farmers, vets and land managers with an interest in serving on the board are invited to register with Defra.