Preventive Veterinary Medicine 100 (2011) 126–133 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Preventive Veterinary Medicine journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/prevetmed Responses of farmers to introduction in England and Wales of pre-movement testing for bovine tuberculosis R.M. Christley a,c,∗ , S.E. Robinson a , B. Moore b , C. Setzkorn c , I. Donald b a Epidemiology and Public Health, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, University of Liverpool, Leahurst Campus, Neston, UK b School of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK c National Centre for Zoonosis Research, Neston, UK article info Keywords: Bovine tuberculosis Surveillance Policy Farmer behaviour Animal movement abstract Pre-movement testing (PrMT) for bovine tuberculosis (bTB) was introduced in England and Wales in 2 phases starting in 2006. This study used questionnaires (n = 800, response rate = 31%) and analysis of national cattle movement records between January 2003 and February 2007 to investigate the impact of PrMT on specific farm management behaviours. A majority of farmers (65%) believed they had not changed their behaviour in response to PrMT; the main reported changes related to decisions regarding selling of cattle. There was evidence in the cattle movement data that introduction of PrMT resulted in reduction of movements of cattle between farms in those areas which must undertake PrMT. The buy- ing behaviour reported by farmers reflected the tendency to buy locally but some farmers reported that others might be more willing to purchase animals from high-risk areas as a result of increased confidence due to PrMT. However, there was little evidence in the move- ment data of increased movements from high- to low-risk bTB areas following introduction of PrMT. Analysis of the cattle movement data found increased movement of single animals and decreased movement of large batches (>10) of animals (directly) between farms since the introduction of PrMT. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a major biological, eco- nomic and political issue in Great Britain (GB); the number of confirmed herd incidents has increased from <1000 per year in the late 1990s to >2000 per year in recent years (Anon, 2010) and the disease is emerging in previously unaffected areas. Government expenditure on bTB is esti- mated to reach £1 billion for the period 2004–2012 whilst direct costs to industry are predicted to increase 4-fold over this period (Anon, 2004). The mainstay of control in GB ∗ Corresponding author at: Department of Epidemiology and Popula- tion Health, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, University of Liverpool, Leahurst Campus, Neston, CH64 7TE, UK. Tel.: +44 0 151 794 6170; fax: +44 0 151 794 6005. E-mail address: robc@liv.ac.uk (R.M. Christley). involves surveillance and culling. The frequency of test- ing is determined by local risk and can be at 1 (highest risk) 2, 3 or 4 (lowest risk) yearly intervals. These are called Parish Test Intervals (PTI) because they are determined at the Parish level and relate to most farms in a particular parish (some farms may require more frequent testing). To reduce bTB spread via cattle movements, pre-movement testing (PrMT) of cattle in areas with a 1 or 2-yearly PTI was introduced in England and Wales from 2006 (Anon, 2006b,c). Initially, phase I applied to cattle over 15 months of age, but in 2007 phase II extended the requirement to all cattle over 42 days (with exemptions) in areas with PTI of 1 or 2 years. Scotland introduced a separate and distinct regimen of pre- and post-movement testing in 2005 (Anon, 2005b). By August 2009 pre-movement testing had been under- taken on 116,523 occasions in England and Wales resulting in testing of almost 1.5 M cattle (Anon, 2009). There is 0167-5877/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.prevetmed.2011.02.005