Labour has promised to end the badger cull in England if it was to gain power in the next general election, according to reports.
Daniel Zeichner, the shadow farming minister, confirmed to The Guardian that Labour would strive on making England free of bovine TB by 2038.
He said his party would shun the badger cull and combat the disease using other methods, including vaccines and biosecurity measures.
England is the only area of Great Britain which culls badgers, with Scotland officially bTB-free.
“I’ve spent a long time looking at this," Mr Zeichner said, "The 2018 Godfrey review, the last piece of work done by the government, found that badger culling is not the answer.
"We’re going to make England bovine TB free by 2038, but with a range of measures that do not include culling.”
The position is in stark contrast to Defra Secretary Thérèse Coffey's, who recently said the Conservatives would "keep culling... as it is the best way."
In the summer, the government expanded the badger cull by issuing supplementary cull licences to 29 zones in England.
Responding to that, Mr Zeichner said the government was "trying to make this some kind of dividing line issue, but it’s a false promise" in the battle against bTB.
"I speak to a lot of farmers and unlike her I don’t just tell them what they want to hear, I have to have answers," he told the paper, adding that the "better promise is to eliminate bovine TB".
"I think we should be moving to a different approach, because we’ve been culling for quite a long time, and it’s still a big issue and we’re still spending £80m a year on compensation, so it’s not exactly working is it?”
Trials for a cattle vaccine and new skin test for the endemic disease have so far been successful, the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) announced earlier this year.
It is hoped that the combination of CattleBCG vaccine and the Detect Infected among Vaccinated Animals (DIVA) skin test will be deployable in the next few years.
