She said the government “spent a lot of of time” in 2024-25 “trying to stop the spread” once the virus arrived in the UK and has been trying to persuade farmers to get their stock vaccinated.
Brown added the uptake has been around 10% and “it just means that not enough animals have been protected and so unfortunately we’re seeing that spike in disease signs”.
NFU president for England and Wales Tom Bradshaw who was also at the meeting called for the government to compensate farmers for disposing of any “fallen stock”.
He added: “We need that vaccine here as quickly as possible so it can be rolled out here and in other parts of the country where we know its spreading to very very quickly.”
He said reporting of vaccination needs to be “more streamlined”.
Currently farmers have to report vaccinating each individual animal, Bradshaw said.
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