NEWS: Foot and Mouth "still a risk" in the UK

The President of the National Farmers' Union(NFU) has revealed that UK borders are still not strong enough, and that a repeat of the 2001 outbreak of the foot-and-mouth disease from foreign imports is still a big danger.


bbc.co.uk
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Tim Bennet spoke out after dreading a repeat of the 2001 epidemic, which resulted in the slaughter of 6 million animals. He hopes to see new contingencies in place, such as vaccinations for many animals.

He said: "I don't think we've yet solved the problem with imported diseases we had in 2001, when foot-and-mouth broke out here.

"We are still bringing plant diseases into the UK, and our borders are porous compared with places like Australia and North America.

"And we need a much better contingency plan to make sure, if there is an outbreak, we don't have to go through the mess we had in 2001 again.

"Farmers can't afford it, and we don't want to see that number of animals slaughtered again - it was bad economically, and bad for the way people saw us.

"In any future outbreak vaccination would play a part - the technology has moved on from where it was three years ago."

Could this be the first sign of an end to the farming industry in the UK? It seems that many will turn to foreign suppliers for their stock because of this risk, as well as the fact that UK farmers cannot compete with the prices of the foreign market.

[Edited on 18-2-2004 by John Nada]

the uk farmers will continue to be subsidised by the european union regardless of their total incompetence. since thatcher, the uk has seen working class industries destroyed due to 'market forces', yet farming survives and will continue to do despite the fact that the industry operates at a fundemental economic loss.

the uk farm industry is a joke. it created 'mad cow disease' by feeding cattle on its own species. it spread the disease by knowingly transporting infected cattle so other farmers could reap the rewards of further EU subsidies.

meanwhile of course, working class industries (coal, docks, cars etc) have been sold off. makes me sick.

Absolutely man, it's a joke.