HEALTHIER LIVESTOCK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 May 1938, Page 3

HEALTHIER LIVESTOCK

CAMPAIGN IN BRITAIN The British Government’s great campaign for healthier farm livestock opened a few weeks ago Nearly 1000 whole-time and part-time veterinary surgeons have been brought under a State veterinary service. The campaign will cost the Exchequer £600,000 annually for four years. The outlay is small, notes the agricultural correspondent of the “Sunday Times,” in comparison with the losses due to disease, officially estimated at £14,000,000 annually, or one-tenth of the entire output of the dairy, meat and poultry industries. One of the most ambituous features of the campaign is a four-year plan to clean up areas of the country with a low incidence of tuberculosis in cattle. This began last September. When areas have been defined with a substantial majority of cattle free of the disease, the movement of cattle will be restricted so as to prevent infection from being conveyed from outside. By this means, the Government hopes to establish gradually extending reservoirs of healthy cattle and to isolate the worst sources of infection. ' It is also the Government’s intention to institute a vigorous attack on diseases affecting other classes of livestock, particularly poultry, which appear to have degenerated seriously in recent years.