I am so disconnected from any form of farming that I don't comprehend what it could do again to our livestock industry. I can visually see fires to burn the dead cattle and I can see figures like "£8.5 billion", but I can't guess what it is like to lose your cattle.

What does get to me however is that if it was the Pirbright Laboratory at fault, that's some serious scare-story for me. The idea that a biohazard could have left a lab unknown to them is pretty worrying; at which point I am 'glad' it wasn't a human form of a disease. This is why I hate biochemistry, it's so difficult to control what you are doing and once it is in your body, you never know what it can do.

This is presumptious; I hope it is nothing to do with Pirbright.

Any thoughts?

It's not just Purbright but a place I believe is called Porton Down or something where the goverment keep nice things like Mustard gas, Anthrax, Blood agents and various other chemical and biological nasties. I'm glad I don't live in the over populated S. East

At the peak of the last disaster it was just horrible, feling trapped unable to move off the road driving past empty fields suicide rates in the country up and the French uinable to resist sliding some blatant protectionism in on the back of it all.
The 2001 outbreak and the recent problem are a perfect example of Fildes law. A disaster will happen again once everyone who remebered it the last time around has retired or died, so this time they seem to be doing better. All the info was avaible in reports from the 50s but no one in Government thought to read them or call back some people from retirement. Eventually this lead to desperate ruiniosly expensive , and probably illegal, measures to put the genie back in the bottle. F+M needs a euro wide political solution. Vacination would be cheaper and easier than the movement control regime in place, we wouldnt even know that a a 10s breakdown in a fan (or w/e) had happened at Pirbright but it would spoil our F+M free status which is seen as desirable under the current system.

i've seen several interviews on tv with farmers who were "hit really hard" by the last foot & mouth outbreak, by that they mean they got paid a small fortune from their insurance company and had a few months holiday. bless them it must be hard having no work to do for several months and still get paid enough to expand your business.

jug said:

i've seen several interviews on tv with farmers who were "hit really hard" by the last foot & mouth outbreak, by that they mean they got paid a small fortune from their insurance company and had a few months holiday. bless them it must be hard having no work to do for several months and still get paid enough to expand your business.

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You have no idea what it was like do you? Seeing (and smelling) your livelihood go up in a cloud of smoke? Or if you are lucky enough not to have a pyre in your field, you can't do much business because DEFRA has banned stock movement, so you can't send stock to auction etc. You couldn't even move stock from field to field without permission. Necessary but still more than a PITA.

You don't get holidays with farming - you work every single day regardless of weather.

Oh and that insurance money would have had to go on new stock (you have no livelihood without stock) - not a cheap undertaking if you have significant numbers to buy.

There were also loads of people who have rare and pedigree stock numbers reduced by FMD.

And it wasn't just farming that was affected badly - tourism was another big casualty - the public had to keep away for fear of spreading the disease, all the footpaths were closed, national parks were shut...

Renegade_8 said:

Vacination would be cheaper and easier than the movement control regime in place, we wouldnt even know that a a 10s breakdown in a fan (or w/e) had happened at Pirbright but it would spoil our F+M free status which is seen as desirable under the current system.

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I'm not convinced that vaccination is the best way to go as it could mean that the UK farming industry is not going to be regarded as FMD free, which it has been for many years.

Having lived virtually all my life in a village in the EAST midlands (Thats not Birmingham) I have a fairly good grasp about countryside issues. There is no doubt that farmers have been hit bad by F + M and weather but there is something that has to be put into perspective. A farm is a business just like any other, it is there not for the welfare of the animals nor to give city folk a nice day out. It is there to make a profit - end of story.

F + M in 2001 was caused in part by modern farming methods and became nationwide because of stock being moved over large distances for profit or financial gain. The government this time put an immediate ban on livestock movement and although I haven't heard the latest news, it doesn't seem to have spread out of the local area to other farms.

My point is simple, as a business, farms are just as responsible as any other business for the security of their own industry. Unlike the majority of other businesses, farmers do get financial support and help from the government when things get tough, an example is set - aside which replaced the CAP policy that allowed over production.

Think of the outcry if the hosiery industry in Leicester - which has been virtually wiped out - went to the goovernment demanding subsidies and then blamed the same government for allowing free market forces to destroy their industry.

It's no good blaming the current labour government because the tories were just as bad, anyone remember the denial about BSE?

Any way, rant over, basically the farms are a business like any other, Farmers do deserve our sympathy because their produce is livestock that is living, breathing and do have character and none of us will be able to cope with mass slaughter of animals, especially if they were cats and dogs. But they need to look within their own industry before blaming others.

See the French jumping at the oppertunity to break the law again. Telling everyone not to buy british meat. Erm if it pass import regulations then you're fine to eat it.

Of course Brussels wont do anything about it, they love france.

at the moment, the its the movement ban that affects us. we cant get rid of any young stock, so we have to keep them and feed them for as long as the ban is in place.
of course, the ban IS a good thing, at least they responded quickly.

We didnt go down with FMD last time, but the 4 farms around us did. it was a horrible time, you could smell rotting and burning animal carcasses... not good

I remember a few visits to the lakes back in 2001 and having to drive through disinfectant points, (almost lost a rover going over one too quickly!)and seeing (and smelling) the pyres.

A lot of footpaths and riding tracks etc were closed near me, so I stopped mountain biking (& subsequently drove more and got fatter and never got back into the habit of riding)

as for some farms, they were hit hard, others werent so bad, I know of one farm who sold a lot of their land after FMD and the land they keep now has caravans on it for storage, and they earn more of that than farming

i wouldn't be surprised if the french company who owns the lab deliberately did it to sell vaccines, and also they're french so probably being paid to do so by a large group of french farmers. as long as the government sue them afterwards for the cost of the vaccines, the loss of earnings to farmers and anything else they can be sued for.
It's been good to see they immediately stopped animal transports as they didn't do that til far too late last time, even my mum kept wondering as to why they didn't last time. she used to live on a farm back when the foot and mouth was around in the 60's. i assume Blair was too busy with his holiday or doing his hair or something to worry about such a trivial mater

My dads got a farm,im there quite alot and used to live there untill the divorce (mum moved out but she still kept her favorite jersey,lol). anyway its only a small farm and we had 7cows untill the 2001 F&M hit, A farmer next to us had all his cattle killed due to catching F&M,but luckly we didn't,but we sold them after the F&M died off, and we haven't had any more livestock since, except chickens and ducks(but they've all f**ked off somewhere )

So due to having do cows the fields have majorly over-grown.one of them havent been cut since 2001,so now like a wet-land bog....not so bad tho because theres plenty of wildlife and deer and birds of prey etc. We were going to get some sheep (like in the next few weeks) to sort the fields out but due to the transport ban its a no-no now

Anyway F&M sucks if you have livestock,constantly having to disenfect your shoes and tyres etc and the constant worry that you could loose your cattle, you become very attached to them when there only a few of them and you've raised them from calfs. the amount of effort you put into them is unbelievable (Except getting kicked,crushed,butted and trod on by them is crap,but thats farming for you ) also putting a muck fork through your toe hurts like f***.....ive tried it

Big Black Stilo said:

I remember a few visits to the lakes back in 2001 and having to drive through disinfectant points, (almost lost a rover going over one too quickly!)and seeing (and smelling) the pyres.

A lot of footpaths and riding tracks etc were closed near me, so I stopped mountain biking (& subsequently drove more and got fatter and never got back into the habit of riding)

as for some farms, they were hit hard, others werent so bad, I know of one farm who sold a lot of their land after FMD and the land they keep now has caravans on it for storage, and they earn more of that than farming

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Go to the lakes now and you can still see where the disinfectant points were. Strips of tar across the road used to hold the soaked fabric down. Dark days (not only because it rains 80% of the days in the lakes).