The Spread of Foot and Mouth Disease and News on Genetically Manipulated Trials in Wales

Foot and mouth has jumped ten miles from Brecon area to Crickhowell, spreading towards Abergavenny. Ten farms have been slaughtered out so far and one farmer is refusing to slaughter until they can prove his stock were infected. Alaine Addy, a young solicitor has so far helped 101 farmers to make a stand against contiguous culling of healthy stock. This outbreak extends across the county boundary into Monmouthshire and is now appearing to follow the direction of a river. Three thousand sheep are being slaughtered from the mountain. The Government believes that the cattle was infected by these sheep when they were brought down from the hill for shearing.

Vaccine available would have cut off infection

At a large gathering of farmers recently a virologist addressed the meeting, stating that there was only one sub-strain of foot and mouth disease in the UK outbreak and the vaccine available would have cut off this infection. The first vaccination would provide a large percentage immunity and a second one six months later would give complete immunity. The commissioner David Byrne is blocking vaccination as are our two uninformed Unions. We cannot afford to let this terrible crisis go on. The farmers who have been restricted but have no infection are suffering most. They have had no income since the beginning of January and cannot move their stock. They are over-stocked now and cannot make enough fodder for next year’s supplies. Whilst the price of lamb has collapsed due to the monopoly abattoir situation, we are being told that we will have a glut of lambs due to the banning of exports. However, we have slaughtered more in-lamb ewes and lambs than we normally export.

Spread of disease certainly not normal

A statement is circulating that, during an audit at the laboratories at Porton Down, where germ warfare is researched, a file of FMD was missing. The way this disease is spreading certainly is not normal and the Government has not denied this statement. Our tourist industry is being wrecked and the Prime Minister appears more concerned about that than the farmers’ plight. He will still be taking his summer holidays out of this country and whilst farming is in a serious crisis. His own party attacked him in Parliament last week, not over this crisis but over the sacking of two chairmen of Government committees, both Labour. They have now been re-instated we believe. Our Government is now on holiday until October. It makes us wonder whether we really need them, especially as they no longer have any power, having signed it away to the EU and WTO. A large part of our meat industry is in the control of non-trustworthy characters, trading abattoirs and cutting plants under different names but belonging to Larry Goodman. He is able to support the Irish export trade in place of our home produce. Books and TV programmes have been presented reporting the big enquiry conducted on his business in Ireland but he is too big to tackle. The previous European agriculture commissioner, Ray McSharry, persuaded the banks not to foreclose on him when he was bankrupt we believe, stating that if they foreclosed on Goodman the Irish economy would collapse.

It is now announced that 13,000 sheep on the Brecon Beacons are being fenced into huge pens for blood testing. The results should be obtainable within a week. The big question arises as to how they judge the results. Will they slaughter all if one or two cases are found or will they slaughter on the grounds of some possessing antibodies to FMD and are therefore immune? Up until now the vets seem to want to kill those with antibodies who have thus got over the disease.

Genetically manipulated Trials

Numerous genetically manipulated ‘trials’ are being grown throughout the country on oilseed rape, sugar beet and maize. Several crops have been destroyed. On July 14th a large gathering from Wales, England and some from Scotland met in Connahs Quay to destroy the maize being grown by a very determined, brainwashed farmer. These trials are now being carried out on large fields and the Minister informed me that they were to test the effects of herbicides on insects, birds etc. in the environment. The fields are planted in one half with the normal crop and the other half with genetically manipulated crop. Presumably both will cross-pollinate the other so they will not be of very good scientific standard. The herbicides are used on conventional crops anyhow so why bother to test them by planting genetically manipulated crops? The march along the main Chester Road to the farm drew support from passing cars that sounded their horns and waved support. Four guards stood along the edge of the crop and were believed to be working for Aventis. The farm drive and entrance to the field were lined with numerous police. Organic farmers, scientists and others talked to the farmer whilst the police listened. The farmer could not see sense but whilst the discussion went on, some protesters rushed through the gate into the field and started to destroy some of the crop. A cameraman who went in to film, was grabbed by a guard, dragged to the gate and thrown over the top, landing on his back on the concrete yard. He is in hospital with a damaged hip. That was the only violence shown. Several of the police did not go after the demonstrators in the field but those that did arrested nine of the protestors, peacefully. They will be charged in court next month. They will be using the defence that has got three other court cases dismissed so far. Several crops throughout the country have now been damaged or destroyed. The crops being planted are oilseed rape, sugar beet, fodder beet and maize.

National Farmers Union has invested in Monsanto

The National Farmers Union has a great deal of money invested in Monsanto and other biotech companies and is recommending this technology. It is also on the SCIMAC committee setting up the trials. Several Union members have resigned but there are still those, mainly in the large arable areas, who stay with them, believing that technology is God’s gift to them. We have had more technology introduced into farming in the last forty years than in our whole history. Where has it got the farmers?

Not dealing with a straightforward foot & mouth virus

In our area we have only had, so far, one case of foot & mouth. These were sheep purchased by a dealer, who fortunately put them in a barn. The situation elsewhere is grim—the Government is covering up the true facts: Healthy animals are being killed, even on farms where there has been a contiguous cull all wooden buildings are being fired, Yorkshire boarding and sleepers are removed and burnt. There are many of us who are sure that we are not dealing with a straightforward foot & mouth virus.

Large numbers of refurbished unmarked lorries are being deployed over the country with drivers on standby unofficially saying that after the election the livestock destruction will continue. Stocks of straw and sleepers have been located at Army depots on Exmoor.

This is all unbelievable. The cruelty in some of the culls is appalling. Is this some ghastly EU plot ? Do you know?

Not one Pirbright headed notepaper has confirmed FMD

The situation in Britain is really going from bad to worse and we are certain that whatever MAFF say, they are determined to kill at least 50% of our livestock if not more, by Christmas. I have just read a letter which was printed in a Cumbrian newspaper from a farmer who says ‘we were locked in our farm for 17 days when we were confirmed as having FMD. They refused to slaughter our stock until the older cows showed more symptoms by which time, our sheep were off their feet!’

If MAFF were really so concerned about getting rid of this virus, then they should have slaughtered immediately. We know of so many cases where the sick animals were left rotting in the fields and MAFF said they were too busy, (killing healthy animals?) to come and clear the infected carcasses. ... This dreadful scourge would be over by now if far more sinister motives were not behind this. We are almost certain that this was started on purpose and it is certainly being spread on purpose. We also know that in Powys in Wales, research is showing that none of the so-called infected cases actually had FMD at all. In all of the cases researched so far it has been found that not one Pirbright headed notepaper has confirmed FMD.

Pressure needed to counter Government spin

It is very difficult to receive a hearing in the British press, especially the farming press who are happy to sit on the fence and peddle any old ‘spin’ which the Government pushes out. ‘Everything is under control’, ‘Keep on with the policy etc.’ when in fact the very opposite is the case. However the Government has been very clever to reduce press and TV coverage to a minimum. Alas I fear the ‘failed policy’ will be followed until someone realises that the total cost of this disaster is not the ca. £700m of compensation paid to farmers but—as our magazine Private Eye has predicted—somewhere near to ca. £20bn for the damage done to all the other industries (tourism) so badly affected.

I feel sure European farmers and European citizens must be horrified at what they see is happening when much of the loss after the first two weeks could have been avoided with vaccination. It is indeed an animal holocaust and represents the most unscientific, illogical, impractical and incompetent attempt by a so-called advanced country to control a relatively harmless disease.

We are practical hill farmers in the English Lake District of Cumbria. We have always been in favour of vaccination but we have not been consulted. Here we have lived in fear for almost 5 months hardly daring to venture off our farm. We farm 108 hectares of hill land with sheep and cattle but we have not been able to move our livestock for 4 to 5 months now. As you will have heard in many parts of this country, it is a ‘silent spring’. During the last 4 1/2 months I have been lobbying politicians and any organisation which I think might bring pressure on the Government to change their policies.