A pig farmer's story

Dr Guise: "There will only be four or five big pig producers left in the country".

As the UK's farmers continue their battle against the contagious foot-and-mouth disease, BBC News Online's Jorn Madslien listens to the plight of a desperate farmer in Wiltshire.

The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease came as a serious shock to the pig farmer and scientist Dr Jane Guise.

Her research farm near Chippenham in Wiltshire will be hard hit by the outbreak, as will many of her neighbours' farms.

A scientist's interpretation of the foot and mouth virus.

Dr Guise is very pessimistic about the future; both for her own farm and for the pig industry as a whole.

"Foot-and-mouth disease is so contagious, and the particular strain they found is so contagious," the scientist said.

"This could be the final nail in the coffin for the UK pig industry".

It is an industry she knows well: at Manor Farm in Draycot Cerne, Cambac JMA Research has worked closely with pig farmers for years.

Running out of space

Like most of her neighbours, Dr Guise would normally be sending her pigs to be slaughtered at Brentwood in Essex.

But Brentwood is closed because it is infected with foot-and-mouth disease.

So on Friday morning, Dr Guise was unable to send off her sows.

Giraffes at Woburn Safari Park look out over a notice warning visitors about foot and mouth disease.

Later in the day, there was more bad news.

All transport of pigs has been halted and all abattoirs in England and Wales have been closed for a week in an effort to contain the disease.

Farmers across the UK will be unable to sell their pigs and they will not earn any money, but most of them have far more serious concerns - at least in the short term.

"Its a disaster. If you think about how many pigs actually go from each farm each week; maybe 200. And you've got others coming up behind them, so you've got to find space for another 200," Dr Guise said.

"Most farms are full to the gunnels anyway because the whole problem with the farming industry at the moment is that we are battling with cheap imports"

"You have to produce your meat as cheaply as you can, and the cheapest way of doing that is using your buildings to your maximum extent. So people just don't have spare buildings".

During recent swine fever outbreaks, many farmers had to turn their animals out into the fields or house them in bale tents, Dr Guise recalled.

Combined with more rain, that could make the disaster even worse.

Feed shortage

As the weekend was drawing closer, Dr Guise realised that she would have to go out and stock up on pig feed.

If the crisis continues for a long time, she expects the price of feed to rise sharply, and eventually there will be a shortage.

A whole raft of pig farmers will go out of business as a direct consequence of this outbreak, Dr Guise predicted.

And only a handful will rise from the ashes when it is all over.

"There will be four or five big pig producers in the country, each with massive units, and any of the little ones like me will be gone," she said.

Wildlife under threat

Beyond the pig industry's concerns, the foot-and-mouth disease could have serious implications elsewhere in Wiltshire, Dr Guise said.

"The fact that it is here is extremely dangerous because it is a disease of cloven hoof animals. It is airborne, and if it gets into something like the deer population then it really is serious," she said.

Only a few miles to the South East of Manor Farm, the old royal hunting forest Savernake is full of deer.

And a few miles further south again lies Woburn Safari Park.

Here, the management is considering closing to the public to protect its giraffes and other cloven hoof animals from the infectious disease.

The risk is real: Last time the disease reached the UK, it was airborne from France to the Isle of Wight.