A FARMER who has spent almost 50 years farming cattle says he is considering giving it up after a recent outbreak of bovine TB wiped out a third of his herd.

John Hammonds, of Pewcroft Farm in Knightwick, said he is "devastated" that he may lose his entire herd of cattle after recent tests found severe cases of bovine TB in 19 of his cattle.

Bovine Tuberculosis is an infectious disease which mainly affects an animal's

Mr Hammonds said that although he has a herd of 60 in total, he won't be able to continue farming the remaining 41, which will have to go for regular tests to see if the TB has spread to them too.

"It is utterly devastating. My wife, Jill, and I can't farm those we have left and we can't buy anymore. We don't know where this recent outbreak came from, although we believe it has come from badgers as the cattle haven't been around other cattle.

"I've farmed cattle for 45 years and I've never experienced anything like this before. When the foot-and-mouth outbreak came in the early 2000s we narrowly escaped it, the disease came within a quarter of a mile of our farm. But this time, we are probably going to lose them all. The authorities will come soon to take away the infected cattle, who will have to be slaughtered, and we'll just have to wait and see with the others but we can't do anything with them," he said.

Mr Hammonds said he can't see how the farm will recover from the loss.

"It's basically 45 years down the pan. These cattle were raised here on the farm, I bred their mothers and grandmothers before them and we've lost a pedigree Hereford bull. We will get some compensation for this but it will be a fraction of what I would have got for them selling them in future," he said.

"This is our livelihood and we are dependent on the cattle. We are too in shock to really think about what we are going to do now.

"Although you hear a lot from the groups that are against the badger cull, you don't tend to hear from the farmers whose work can be torn apart by an outbreak of TB, which is largely spread by badgers. I know many farmers who have stopped farming cattle because of TB. It seems to come from nowhere and it's a silent, insidious disease which you can't see just by looking at a cow or a bull. I don't think I'll farm them again.

"I am for a cull, but a targeted cull. I believe the powers that be must have the wherewithal to cull an infected set of badgers and leave the healthy badgers alone.

"If you see British beef in the supermarket, make sure you buy it, because it might not be around much longer."