Bovine TB heartbreak for Devon farmer

摘要

David Bolt's family have milked dairy cows at Easter Ridge Farm, Cadeleigh, Devon, since 1962 - and he doesn't want to be the one to pack it all in. But with a herd that's been devastated by TB and milk prices below the cost of production, the futurelooks anything but bright. "Farming is never easy, but until the mid-90s it was a good way of life, and my parents gradually built up to owning 160 acres," he says. "In 1999 I went into partnership with them, and also ran a contracting business foraging, muck-spreading and so on. But in 2000 our vet Dick Sibley said it wasn't foot-and-mouth we should be worried about, it was TB. And sure enough, soon after that we went down with it."