The Foot and Mouth Disaster in the UK
apl. Despite the fact that Britain produces more than enough high-quality meat to satisfy its own requirements, it also imports livestock products. This, as has now been exposed, is mainly cheap meat that includes produce from endemic FMD areas, which is then sold to British consumers by the big supermarket chains.
As a result, many British livestock farmers must rely on exporting much of their produce to markets in Europe but also further afield. Unfortunately many of the consumers abroad demand that animals be slaughtered locally after having been put on special diets for the meat to suit local tastes. Understandably, a large number of people criticise strongly the practice of livestock transportation over long distances, but are things likely to change for the better in the future?
If we decide that livestock transportation is wrong, and come to rely on the importation of meat, we must then be honest enough to question the transportation standards, breeding practice and food hygiene of the countries whose meat we import. These, in practically all cases, are a great deal lower than those in European countries like Britain, and will inevitably attract profit-seeking agri-businesses. But of course, if we are not aware of how the meat we eat is produced, we are not likely to complain, are we?
No movement of animals between farms means the small farmer can only sell to abattoirs and supermarkets on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. In the meantime imports increase, and specialised livestock carriers go out of business.
The plight of these livestock carriers is exemplified by a farmer in Hereford who also has his own transport business. In the following we reprint excerpts from an open letter to the Prime Minister, written by the Hereford farmer who supposedly exported FMD to France.
Hereford, England
09 April 2001
Mr Tony Blair - Prime Minister
Dear Sir
It is with desperation that I find myself writing this letter to you.
Six weeks after the slaughter of all our livestock here in Hereford, suffering the traumatic end to a 30 year old business that I started from nothing, suffering the indignity of having half of our other possessions destroyed and burnt, we sit here still a prisoner in our own property because of a fight between the vets at Worcester and some technical department in London who is trying to avoid paying too much.
The contractors who were cleaning the farm, the vets in charge and all the machines have been moved whilst we await a decision from some office in London as to the plight of two large wooden sheds, which the vets want knocked down, the bureaucrats in London do not want to compensate and we cannot afford to lose.
On top of that we have not as yet received any compensation for the stock and materials valued and seized at the farm.
Also whilst we have been under personal restriction movements and within a day of our stock being slaughtered here we were informed that the French authorities were also slaughtering our stock in France, at the instigation of the British MAFF, they say . We could not intervene or stop any of this action because of the restrictive movements put upon us.
Instead we informed the French authorities that they were killing animals belonging to our British company. This was done through the British Embassy in Paris and the French Embassy in London. I also wrote to Mr Brown on 3rd March asking him for his help in this matter, but have received no reply.
I have written many letters to the French authorities and with the help of the British Embassy in Paris was led to believe that we would be compensated for the stock slaughtered in France, like we will be in Britain.
The reply to my letters that finally arrived from the Chief Vet in Paris on 6.04.01 stated that the French law prohibited payments of compensation to companies outside France. The French have insisted all the time in telephone conversations that we must look to MAFF for our compensation. We have sent the relevant invoices for the stock to MAFF as advised and have been told they too will not pay.
Our company exports about 3 million pounds worth of what we consider to be quality British stock each year. We have had approximately £200,000 of stock destroyed in France and now find ourselves in the position of not being able to pay our debts here, most of which are to Herefordshire small businesses. With no payment by the French and no payment by the British MAFF and the interruption in the cleaning our farm here in Hereford, we are now at our wits’ end to know whether to pack our suitcase, put everything in the hands of a liquidator and leave, or whether to keep on fighting in the hope that someone will be honourable enough to do what they are supposed to do.
We have hesitated to trouble your office with this problem but our local Member of Parliament has advised that we do so. We are only a small family business with many other small businesses depending on us for their payments, but for them and for us this is now survival or bust.
Yours sincerely
Mr K Feakins
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The livestock in question had arrived in France on 1 February, i.e. three weeks before the first case of FMD was announced in Britain, and were subsequently transported to the farm of a M. Nozin. On 26 February, because of the FMD outbreak in the UK, the ‘Direction des Services Veterinaires’ (DSV) came to check the sheep, and after thorough inspection, decided that the sheep were in good health; they did not show any signs of FMD and it was even said that ‘it was most unusual not to see a single lame sheep amongst 201 animals’. On 1 March, the sheep were killed as a ‘precautionary measure’ to tackle FMD. The sheep had by then on average put on 3 kg of weight (rather unusual for FMD-stricken sheep). On 7 March M. Nozin was informed by his local DSV that FMD antibodies had been found in the blood tests carried out prior to slaughter, and that his entire herd had to be eradicated.
It was later revealed in a letter from MAFF, after concerns had been voiced that FMD must have lain undetected in mid-Wales prior to 31 January, that the French authorities had confirmed that these results had not been substantiated by the ELISA test and that the positive serum neutralisation test results must be considered as false positives.
As if this were not bad enough, the horror that this farmer and haulier has faced is no isolated case. So many farmers who had their entire livestock culled have never received test results to prove that their animals actually were infected, nor have they received compensation, and in cases where farmers have attempted to protest against the treatment meted out to them, they have faced harassment and threats, like the family who was threatened with house arrest after protesting against the erroneous culling of their entire herd.
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