FMD crisis continues

The quarantine zone has been extended

Thursday 22nd February 2001

The effects of the foot-and-mouth crisis continue to be felt - though its precise scope remains unknown.

It raises a series of important issues, such as the likely financial cost, the effect on farming and the impact of globalisation on the crisis.

At lunchtime on Thursday, the agriculture minister Nick Brown was able to declare that no fresh cases of foot-and-mouth had been reported.

Late this afternoon, an eight kilometre exclusion zone was placed around an abattoir in Guildford, but this was later withdrawn when the animal suspected of having the disease was inspected by vetinary officials and found clear.

Nick Brown held a crisis meeting on Thursday

This morning, farmers' leaders held emergency talks with ministers aimed at finding a way of containing the outbreak of the disease.

The Agriculture Minister, Nick Brown, says his officials are acting fast. He suspects that if the source of the outbreak is infected food, it must have entered the country illegally.

Hunting ban

The outbreak has led the Countryside Alliance to announce the suspension of hunting for seven days because of fears that movement around the countryside could inadvertently spread the foot-and-mouth virus.

The Countryside Alliance said that it depended on the goodwill of farmers to carry out the sport and did not want to jeopardise the relationship.

Potential cost?

Some frightening statistics have been bandied around about how much the export ban on meat and dairy products could cost the UK's farmers.

They range from the bad to the apocalyptic. Today the Food and Drink Federation estimated that £50 million could be lost in exports if the ban continued until mid-March.

Sean Rickard from the Cranfield School of Management, an economist and former policy adviser to the National Farmers Union, audited the value of livestock exports for the PM programme.

He told us that provided the disease could be isolated, there was no reason why the industry could not make a swift recovery.

It depended on the extent of the problem and its duration, but over a year the loss to the farming industry would be in the region of £200 million to the pig industry, £200 million for the sheep industry and £5 million to the beef industry, already hit by BSE. In total, potential total losses could be in the region of £800 - £900 million over a year if products such as milk were affected.

However, he expressed his confidence in the possibility of containing the disease and in the ability of the industry to recuperate.

NFU expresses hope

Ben Gill, the President of the National Farmers Union, spoke to PM about the latest news. He took comfort from the lack of new cases on Thursday and hoped that if no more were found in the coming week it would mean the virus had been contained.

He asked members of the public to avoid walking on footpaths through livestock areas this weekend to ensure that risks of spreading foot-and-mouth were minimised.

Isolated

The crisis has directly affected a number of people through the quarantine zones that have sprung up.

Ann Waldock is in one of them. Her son in law runs a farm on the Isle of Wight.

Ann turned up on Monday for her usual shift of babysitting her grandchildren, when the vet came round.

Since then, she has been unable to leave the farm and her daughter, who was at work when the quarantine was imposed, has been unable to return to it. She described her situation to PM.