Britain's slaughter policy for animals with foot-and-mouth disease has cost three billion pounds sterling more than if herds and flocks had been vaccinated to combat the virus, a recent study suggests.
Researchers at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, today said the controversial culls would cost taxpayers around five billion pounds by the end of the year.
Vaccinations would have cost less than two billion pounds, the research claims.
Professor Peter Midmore, who carried out the study for the BBC, said the estimates included money spent on slaughter, compensation and the impact on tourism.
More than 3.6 million animals have been slaughtered since the livestock disease was discovered at an abattoir in northern England in February.
Unions, farmers and the government have been locked in a row over whether to vaccinate or kill infected animals.
The British government has resisted farmers' calls to vaccinate animals because of the threat to Britain's 310 million a year export markets.
The government says culling is the fastest route to regaining Britain's status as foot-and-mouth free. Without that status, a country cannot gain access to the world's most lucrative meat export markets.
At the same time, many countries around the world vaccinate against the disease and Britain imports meat from Argentine cattle vaccinated against foot-and-mouth.
So the recent spending research has cast fresh doubt on the government's handling of the crisis which devastated the farming industry.
Dr Richard Rowe, of the pressure group Vets for Vaccination, told the BBC: "You just wonder whether our government are perhaps not very good at science and their sums aren't very good either."
Agriculture Minister Mr Elliot Morley dismissed the report, saying in a statement: "The economic study seems to be flawed because it does not factor in the costs of compensation."
A Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) spokeswoman said that they did not rule out vaccination in the future.
French authorities stamped out foot-and-mouth by immediately vaccinating all animals in a five mile radius around outbreaks to prevent further infection before animals were culled. The government says Britain's outbreak was too widespread when first detected for vets to know which animals to vaccinate.