Video: Badger cull: we have to move away from sentimentality, says Gloucestershire dairy farmer Government's environment advisory body, Natural England, issued the first licence for a pilot cull in Gloucestershire yesterday, the start of a controversial attempt to tackle tuberculosis in cattle by shooting thousands of badgers, which are blamed for spreading the disease. Jan Rowe, a dairy farmer in the county, welcomed the move. "Until we tackle the disease vigorously in badgers we will always have problems in cattle," he said, as he estimated that TB costs the dairy industry between £75 million and £100m every year, sums that he claimed are matched by the taxpayer through government handouts. He added: "We have to move away from the sentimentality and emotion on this one, we are dealing with a dangerous disease." However, a local opponent said the cull was cruel and unlikely to address the TB problem. Tony Dale, from Gloucestershire Badger Trust, said he sympathised "with all farmers" but suspected that the cull would do little to alleviate the issue of TB and may even help it spread to unaffected areas as infected badgers move into the territory left by the cull of "healthy" rivals.