As in many other countries MAP is present in the Dutch Cattle population.The cattle industry and the government are principals of the Dutch approach to control MAP. The control is based on existing knowledge about the pathogen and epidemiological and economical modelling of different intervention scenario's: cost benefit and risk assessment.The program has preventive measurements and bio security as key issues in the approach to the disease. An overview of the Dutch approach is given.The technical results of different research projects are presented in other papers.