Farmers Building up Resistance

Farmers in Revolt Over Mass Cull

Farmers for Action declared ‘all-out war’ on the Government as the rural revolt grew over plans to cull up to a million healthy animals in the foot-and-mouth crisis.
While the National Farmers’ Union, which supports the cull, forecast ‘months of torture’, its members in Cumbria split from the leadership and threatened to barricade their farms to prevent Ministry of Agriculture vets from destroying their stock.
The NFU called for ‘hundreds of millions of pounds’ to rebuild the industry. Nick Brown, the Minister of Agriculture, was forced to apologise for his blunder which led farmers to believe that cattle would be included in the extra, precautionary cull. Only sheep, pigs, goats, llamas and alpacas will be included in the cull within three kilometres of infected farms. The cull was put on hold until Jim Scudamore, the Government’s chief vet, could travel to Carlisle to explain his reasons for it.
Cumbria is one of the areas worst hit by the disease, but cattle would be slaughtered only if they caught the disease because they were regarded as less of a risk as carriers.
One of the latest outbreaks was among a dozen sheep used to crop grass at a Ministry of Defence explosives depot at East Riggs, near Gretna, in Dumfries and Galloway.
Mr Brown said he was sorry for the ‘ambiguity’ of his statement which caused anger and panic. ‘We did not explain ourselves very well’, he said. ‘I apologise on my own behalf and on behalf of the ministry for any harm and distress. I take responsibility.’
But even as the Government tried to calm the rising tide of protest, there was new controversy about the total impact of the extra cull.
Mr Brown and his officials said the figure for the extra doomed livestock could be ‘around 300,000’, but the NFU said it could top one million.
Ben Gill, the NFU president, said farmers were facing the ‘torture’ of seeing their herds and flocks wiped out and not knowing where the disease would strike next or if their farms would survive. ‘That torture was compounded by mistakes made at the Ministry of Agriculture.’ He would be submitting compensation demands totalling ‘hundreds of millions’, including money to allow farmers to quit the industry. EU schemes were available for that purpose.

Source: Weekly Telegraph, Issue 504