Date: 17 September 2007

Foot and Mouth

Last week, just days after the Chief Vet announced that Britain was free of foot and mouth, another outbreak started on a farm near Egham in Surrey. Since then, at least two further farms have been infected and seen animals slaughtered.

My first reaction on hearing the news, just like many of you I’m sure, was one of horror.  The last thing that our farmers need now is another foot and mouth outbreak.  The implications for their businesses are truly frightening and I’m certain that a major outbreak of foot and mouth across the country would be the final straw for many English farmers.

This outbreak has come at just about the worst time imaginable for local Moorlands farmers.  Store animals must be sold in the next few weeks, but with a ban on livestock movements, except to take animals to slaughter, our local farmers are unable to take animals to market to sell them to raise badly needed income for the coming winter months.  To put into context how badly farmers will be affected, the press are saying that the auction normally held at this time of year in Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales, cancelled due to foot and mouth, would normally raise £2m for around 500 farmers.  That’s £4,000 on average for each farmer.

Not just that, but if farmers cannot sell these surplus animals, they may not have enough feed for their livestock over the next few months.  Upland areas are already getting short of pasture and stocks of feed will start to run low soon. This could lead to some serious animal welfare concerns. I am very worried about how our farmers are going to cope and how many more will go out of business.

You may say that this doesn’t matter – people go out of business all the time and if farmers can’t make money from farming then they shouldn’t be doing it.  But I disagree. It matters because British farm produce – be it meat, dairy or vegetables – are of the finest quality. It is the safest you can eat and the UK has the highest animal welfare standards. We all need to eat and we need a choice. I want to be able to feed my family on locally produced, high quality, wonderful tasting food. And it also matters because without farmers, who would keep the Moorlands looking so beautiful?

Farmers do not want charity. All they want is to be able to achieve a fair price for the excellent products they produce.  This seems like a reasonable ambition to me and one that I would like to see Government policy support.  The Fairtrade movement should be a role model for us in Britain – it’s great to have fair trade for overseas farmers, but it’s about time we had some fair trade for British farmers too.