LAST WEEK'S "Cattle farmer defends badgers" was hardly, if you'll permit the pun, a deeply dug story. Speaking on behalf of my brother-in-law, farmer Len Ballinger, and for our action group, Stopwaronbadgers.org, we felt the story suggests both Len and his arguments might be isolated.

Far from it. Len's stance on the proposed badger cull has triggered much support within the farming community, with calls from throughout the south west echoing his conviction that there's something deeply dodgy about the entire badger-blaming dossier.

It's true that MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown still believes badgers are connected, but he omits to mention that he cannot count on useful support from the government's own scientists. After 35 years and a £43m trial, no badger-to-cattle infection link has ever been proved.

Sadly, the highly likely truth, that badgers are infected by rooting around in cattle dung, has seen zero research. One notable test was carried out by MAFF in the late 70s though: they locked up a group of calves with some TB-infected badgers. After five months, the results showed no transmission had occurred.

Bovine TB used to be kept to a very low level without killing any badgers at all, but the BSE epidemic (from 1986, peaking in 1993) put MAFF under great strain, and led to TB controls being relaxed.

Then large numbers of untested cattle were transported to restock depleted areas. The same pattern occured with Foot and Mouth Disease, in 2001. The results? Bovine TB rocketed.

It's clear what gives cattle TB: other cattle. Indeed, the government's scientists stress this, advocating enhanced on-farm biosecurity and cattle testing. Scientists at Oxford University say cattle movements "substantially and consistently outweigh" all other factors for predicting TB.

This is why we're sending Ian Johnson, South West spokesman for the NFU, honorary membership to the Flat Earth Society. As you reported, he believes badgers "exude TB from every pore". That's the kind of witchcraft anyone who looks into this subject for more than a few minutes will immediately laugh off, but his suggestion that it is "accepted by all parties that badgers are a cause or link in the disease" is, to put it politely, a rank untruth.

His "parties" seems to overlook the anti-cull stance of the RSPCA, the National Trust, the Woodland Trust, Gloucestershire Wildlife Rescue and the Royal Society, while our own supporters include Chris Packham, Simon King, Jilly Cooper and none other than zoologist Martin Hancox, who sat on the government's badger and bovine TB panel.

So Len isn't isolated, and with the oxygen of your newspaper, we believe Brock isn't either. If the government allows this scandalous slaughter to go ahead, the NFU might get its pound of flesh, but it is deeply misjudging the mood of the countryside. The evil TB-spreading badger is this year's WMD - a myth they need you to buy.

Because if you didn't, you'd naturally want to know why all those DEFRA millions on badger testing have been spent, wouldn't you?

Simon Hacker Spokesman, Stopwaronbadgers.org Kilcott Road Hillesley