The battle to eradicate TB in cattle is a Government priority, South West farmers have been told by new agricultural minister Lord Bach.

Making his first agricultural engagement since taking office as sustainable food and farming minister, he promised farmers at the Royal Cornwall Show that the rampant spread of bovine TB in the area was top of the list.

"I have come to the show to listen and learn," he said. He had heard some strong views from farmers about TB and understood it was of huge importance to the area.

"We do care about this," he said. Gestures were not good enough, action is what was needed.

But he was still calling for patience and care as he said: "We have to get it right."

There still remained deep concern over the cattle to cattle transfer of the disease as well as from badgers, he added.

But the minister, during his tour of the showground, could not have failed to realise the deep concern of all those present that TB and badgers was uppermost in the minds of cattlemen.

Even in the Cornwall Food and Farming marquee the subject was being discussed, not least with co-organisers Ashley and Hilary Wood who farm at Stithians in Cornwall.

The couple spoke of the plight of many Cornish farmers who had been hit by bovine TB and unable to move cattle.

But, in a press briefing, the minister endorsed all that animal health minister Ben Bradshaw from Exeter had said a few days earlier, when Defra announced it was to begin a small-scale three-year vaccine field study in badgers as part of its ongoing research to control bovine TB.

Research into the use of a vaccine for badgers has been underway since 1999.

The new study will primarily gather safety data, but will also attempt to assess the protective effect of the vaccine.

The badger field study and ancillary diagnostic testing is estimated to cost about £1.1 million a year for three years. Further work on oral vaccine formulation development is to be taken forward from November, 2005, at a cost of £500,000 a year for three years.

The vaccine used, BCG, is the same one used in humans.

The proposed field study, which will take place in the hardest hit area of the South West should start in mid 2006, at the end of next winter's closed season.

Defra will be seeking landowner permission and evaluating improved diagnostic tests to support the study.

Mr Bradshaw said: "We will be injecting badgers with the vaccine during the study. There are cases where this method of administration may be useful as an alternative to culling, for instance in disease hotspots.

"To that end, both the UK and Republic of Ireland are continuing to carry out work on a version of BCG that can be taken orally."

A naturally infected herd will be used to compare the effectiveness of several vaccines.

The NFU in the South West want action as soon as possible and have hit out at badger protection groups who claim cattle movements are largely to blame for the high incidence of bovine tuberculosis in the area.

That was a "desperate deception," said their TB spokesman Jan Rowe.

"If cattle movements were the key, you would have a much worse problem outside the South West in areas which traditionally import animals from the region. The fact is that inside these core areas, where 95 per cent of the disease occurs, cattle movements are not a predictor and the only correlation between persistent, recurrent bovine TB and cattle is where you have infected badgers upon which there is no movement restriction whatsoever."

NFU South West director, Anthony Gibson, said: "The bovine TB problem must be dealt with in the round if we are ever to get on top of it. Just as we are prepared to accept controls on cattle movements to deal with that aspect of the problem, so the badger lobby must accept controls on badgers to deal with the wildlife reservoir of the disease. We are never going to make progress if they remain in denial."