Archbishop prays for farmers

Church services have been hit by the disease's spread

By religious affairs correspondent Emily Buchanan

Anglican Church congregations across Britain are to say special prayers and make Sunday collections in aid of farmers.

Collections on Mothering Sunday are usually for the Mothers Union or children's charities, but this year it will be farmers affected by foot-and-mouth that will benefit.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, said in an interview for the BBC that he wanted to express his solidarity with the farming community.

We must be asking what kind of lessons can we learn, it may be that we've gone for cheap food at any price

Archbishop George Carey

His pledge came as the number of confirmed foot-and-mouth cases rose by 45 to 560 on Saturday.

Archbishop Carey said the farming community was "the heart of our nation. We owe so much to them".

The money raised in churches on Sunday will be added to a special fund set up by all the Christian denominations.

A spokesman for the Addington Fund said that desperation among farmers was setting in and they had had a surge in applications.

The fund has raised more than £500,000 and given 100 small grants, mostly to help buy animal feed for farmers whose income has dried up.

The Church Commissioners are among the UK's largest landowners, with about 300 tenants.

The Archbishop has now asked the commissioners to look sympathetically at farmers facing problems paying their rents.

Archbishop Carey: We owe farmers so much

He said: "We will approach this pastorally, I urge them to get on to their agent if farmers are worried about their future, and we'll consider all kinds of solution to help them."

He also stressed that with urban and rural parishes working together in the crisis, the Church can help to build bridges across what he called the "chasm" separating the cities and the countryside.

When asked whether it is morally right to be burning thousands of innocent animals he gave a forthright defence of the current slaughter policy.

"Foot-and-mouth disease is a terrible, terrible disease and if we don't control it, it will run amok."

On the question of whether all these crises affecting farming are acts of God, the Archbishop said: "We must be asking what kind of lessons can we learn, it may be that we've gone for cheap food at any price and we have to say hold on a minute, we've got to go for good food at a fair price for farmers."