By Dominic Dyer
Science has been of critical importance throughout my career, from my time in the Ministry of Agriculture to working in the food manufacturing and crop protection industries and my role today in the wildlife protection field.
I recall chairing a debate at the Tory party conference in 2011, on the importance of science to the future of farming and food production, with agriculture minister Jim Paice, National Farmers' union (NFU) president Peter Kendall and director of the Soil Association Helen Browning.
We all agreed at the time on the importance of underpinning farm and environment policy with sound scientific research, which commands public confidence.
I have since found it very disappointing that each of these individuals have forgotten the importance of this issue and have thrown their support behind a badger cull policy which has no credible scientific justification, and is simply a political decision to appease farming interests despite huge opposition from most leading scientists, conservationists and the general public.
I have since found it very disappointing that each of these individuals have forgotten the importance of this issue and have thrown their support behind a badger cull policy which has no credible scientific justification, and is simply a political decision to appease farming interests despite huge opposition from most leading scientists, conservationists and the general public.
If I was chairing this debate again, I would point out that the badger cull policy is fatally flawed as it is built on three pillars of sand: negligence, incompetence and deceit.
Negligence because in 2001 during the foot and mouth outbreak, NFU president Ben Gill pressured prime minister Tony Blair to give up on his plans to vaccinate cattle to stop the spread of the disease in favour of a national cull policy.