A farmer's market day joy

Cattle and sheep were destroyed across the UK

Farmer Jacqueline Leannie, 37, speaks to BBC News Online from an Orkney cattle market, the first in the UK since the foot-and-mouth disease was discovered six months ago.

The mother-of-four, who is married to John, is the third generation of her family to run a farm on the island.

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The family woke this morning knowing it was a special day - the first cattle market on Orkney in many, many months.

But today's sale was different to those we had been at previously.

For this one we put on white plastic coats and religiously disinfected our footwear and the tyres of our farm vehicles.

All this was necessary because of foot-and-mouth, a disease which had not made it on to the island but was affecting our lives in dramatic fashion.

The disease came at lambing time

The nearest cases to us were in the Borders and Dumfriesshire, some 300 miles away.

But the miles which separate those farms from ours was no argument for complacency.

The restrictions which we have faced have been no less than those in England and Wales, where foot-and-mouth cases have been at their worst.

Back in February we could not market anything, but as the days and weeks followed we were able to slaughter meat for sale.

However, the ability to slaughter did not indicate we were working normally. Foot-and-mouth came at a bad time, just as our lambing season had started.

Special licence

We could see, and even go by, our sheep, which were on the sides of the roads. But they could not be shepherded home until we had applied for a special licence from the local agricultural department.

The farming community was not going to take chances and we were careful to disinfect everything.

Even the postman delivered our mail from a distance.

If good is to come out of this then we should sort out now the unacceptable practice of bringing in imported meat, which is not tested and is not licensed

Being an obvious potential carrier of the disease, he was asked to leave post at the entrance to farms.

It was also vital for us to educate the public not to come near, not to take chances - we knew the disease had devastating effects.

The restarting of the market forms the positive chapter in this very sorry story.

But none of us can say this is the end, we cannot let our guard down.

Over the last few months, farmers and public alike have been used to seeing these distinctive disinfectant mats.

Markets were halted when foot-and-mouth was discovered

They will be here for a long time to come, they may even become part of our way of life. If they help to maintain a foot-and-mouth free Scotland, then they should stay.

This crisis is likely to mark a watershed in British farming. If good is to come out of this then we should sort out now the unacceptable practice of bringing in imported meat, which is not tested and is not licensed.

I believe things will change, and Scotland will set the standard, and may even break away from the rest of the UK where there are going to be much bigger, and longer-term consequences of foot-and-mouth.

So many people have worked hard to bring the market back after so long - it feels good to be here, seeing the fruits of our labour being sold.

Let's hope it is a success and that it continues as part of a new era of farming - one which is not complacent and will never let foot-and-mouth rear its ugly head again.