More Beacons tests to take place

More sheep are to be gathered for futher tests

Testing of sheep for foot-and-mouth is to be extended further across the Brecon Beacons and into south Wales.

Graziers met ministry vets on Monday to discuss the testing of between sixty to eighty more farms in the area.

The Welsh Assembly announced the extension of checks for foot-and-mouth around the Brecon Beacons at the weekend.

Crisis in Wales

Total confirmed cases UK-wide 1,928 - with 114 in Wales

Powys - 74 cases

Anglesey - 13 cases

Monmouthshire - 20 cases

Caerphilly - 2

Rhondda Cynon Taff - 1

Neath Port Talbot -1

Newport - 3

Over 6,500 sheep have been culled in the area in the last 10 days after antibodies were found following an outbreak at Libanus.

In the meeting with ministry vets, graziers were told the checks will now involve farms from the Heads of the Valleys road right up to the A40 road

However, one grazier Robert Davies said the extent of the infection was still not known.

There are fears that up to 100,000 extra sheep could now be tested across the Beacons.

The programme is to be extended to Vaynor and Penderyn, north of Merthyr - and across the great forest above Hirwaun.

Testing also looks set to be increased around the Crickhowell area after a cluster of cases were identified there.

Testing is to be extended

Thirty farmers who graze 17,000 sheep to the south east of the Beacons including the Llangynydr and Llangattock Mountains were called to talks to discuss the gathering in of those flocks.

Meanwhile, farmers are awaiting the results of tests on 4,000 animals who were brought down from the hills.

The testing has raised fears that more of the 100,000 sheep on the Beacons have been affected by foot-and-mouth.

Disease concerns

Farmers' Union of Wales deputy president Glyn Powell has voiced his concerns over the prospect that the virus has spread.

He said: "The hills here roll into each other and there is no physical barrier.

"They go on for miles and miles. This disease is consuming the heartland of Wales."

Welsh Rural Affairs Minister Carwyn Jones said that the latest results supported the theory that the disease was spreading from one source.

"All the evidence so far suggests that the disease has been spreading on the mountain from one original point and that the level of infection drops sharply as we move out from that point."

"It provides us with some comfort - the disease isn't as widespread as people had feared at one time."

Meanwhile, chair of the graziers at Libanus Edwin Harris has dismissed suggestions that some farmers in the area could have received up to £1m in compensation.

Mr Harris said with payments on average of £90 per ewe, with an extra £30 for hefted animals, that amount of compensation was not possible.