Legal challenge to Defra TB testing

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The Somerset farm, which provides milk to supermarkets, is challenging the results because while all 100 livestock tested positive after the gamma interferon (gIFN) blood test, just three were positive after a skin test.

The Higher Burrow Organic Farming Partnership, based near Martock, is one of a number of farms demanding re-tests after contradictory results emerged from the simultaneous use of the skin and gIFN examinations by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Lawyers Clarke Williams claim the two tests gave results too inconsistent to be credible and said the herd deserved to be re-checked.

Defra sought to destroy the animals on January 22, but have agreed not to cull them until the judicial review is heard on February 12.

Tim Russ, a partner and agricultural law expert at Clarke Willmott, said: "Tests for bovine TB were conducted using the skin test and the gamma interferon (gIFN) test. Whilst the skin test showed just two or three cases of TB, the gIFN test showed 100. This suggests that there is something seriously wrong with one or both of these tests.

"The slaughter of these 100 animals would cost the Higher Burrow Organic Farming Partnership more than £100,000 and we simply wish Defra to re-test before these animals are removed unnecessarily."

Clarke Willmott is also acting on behalf of two more farmers, one in Dorset and one in Wiltshire, who are in a similar position.

If the High Court backs the case for a re-test Defra may have to offer second chances to other farmers and review how the test is deployed.

The agency is expected to defend its use of the gIFN test that it insists is reliable. A Defra spokeswoman said: "The gamma interferon diagnostic test for bovine TB is used around the world and has been validated in GB conditions."