84 8/15 August 2020 | VET RECORD

News & Reportsvet.news@bmj.com

By Josh Loeb

SOCIAL and behavioural scientists should be central to renewed efforts to combat bovine TB (bTB), the BVA has said.

The association last week released a comprehensive 72-page policy paper on controlling and eradicating bTB, covering everything from cattle movements through to testing and badger culling.

Among the most eye-catching aspects of the paper was its call for techniques developed by the likes of the government’s Behavioural Insights Team – colloquially known as the ‘Nudge Unit’ – to be deployed to drive improvements in farming practices.

After detailing the ‘breadth of negative feeling’ and ‘fatigue’ in the farming community about bTB and measures aimed at controlling it, the

Behavioural science is key for bTB, says BVApaper goes on to recommend a change of tone in how the issue is spoken about.

For example, it says ‘gain messaging’, which emphasises gains to be won from good decisions, should be used in place of ‘loss messaging’, which focuses on losses from bad decisions.

Similarly, there should be greater use of ‘positive reinforcement’. This could take the form of providing financial incentives and disincentives to guide behaviour.

Language around bTB can often be ‘distanced, impersonal or accusatory’. Instead, there should be an ‘end to blame culture’ and a shift towards ‘constructive evaluation and open dialogue in which all stakeholders work together to seek root causes, understand the system better, and identify systemic improvements’, it says. t

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NEWS & REPORTS

For too long, the [bTB] debate has been unhelpfully characterised in terms of cattle versus badgers

The UK could even take inspiration from New Zealand, where all cattle herds receive a ranking indicating the number of years of freedom from the disease.

The BVA’s vision for proverbial carrots as well as sticks is not entirely new. Already the bTB compensation system – the system for remunerating farmers whose infected cattle are removed and culled – acts to incentivise or disincentivise certain actions.

In Scotland, for example, provisions have been introduced to reduce the amount of compensation paid where a cattle owner has allowed their statutory bTB testing to go overdue by more than 60 days. And in England the compensation regime has been used to encourage membership of the bTB health scheme accredited under the Cattle Health Certification Standards (with higher payments in some circumstances for members of the scheme).

However, the BVA wants such approaches to be ‘expanded and integrated within a wider system of “earned recognition” based on past performance, biosecurity measures and local risk faced by each farm’.

It adds: ‘This would allow more positive messaging to be deployed: rewarding farmers for best practice instead of just applying penalties.’

Similarly, the BVA recommends greater ‘interdisciplinary working between vets and social scientists, with research institutions, including funders, developing and embedding structures that enhance interdisciplinary thinking and research’.

It also calls for greater transparency about the bTB epidemic, arguing that data should be routinely collated, analysed and published ‘showing local parameters such as incidence, average number of reactors and typical duration of restrictions in that area’.

This, in turn, could help empower vets and farmers to feel more ‘ownership’ of the disease and the decisions they take.

Among its 35 recommendations to policymakers, BVA also wants to see:∙ Long-term funding for dedicated

bTB advisory services;∙ Systems to allow greater data

sharing between government vets and private vets;

∙ Simplification of communication with farmers and research

areas prioritised;∙ Continued post-Brexit cooperation

and collaboration on bTB between the four UK governments.

On the vexed question of badger culling, the association says cull licences should not be issued until farmers are adhering to best practice and observing a risk-based trading programme.

It says there should be more emphasis on human behaviour and ‘lessons from social scientists’ should be incorporated into bTB policy.

BVA junior vice president James Russell said: ‘For too long, the [bTB] debate has been unhelpfully characterised in terms of cattle versus badgers, and this misses the complex issues behind the disease, including understanding human behaviour and its impact on decisions.

‘For the first time, we’re calling for behavioural science to be front and centre in the approach to bTB research and control. This means rewarding good biosecurity practices, providing vets and farmers with the tools and data they need to make evidence-based decisions, and recognising the human impact of this devastating disease.’

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