Have the farmers and co lost all common sense? (The Foot-and-Mouth crisis and the UK Countryside)

Member Name: MikeyBean

Product:	The Foot-and-Mouth crisis and the UK Countryside
Date:	03/09/01 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: If we're lucky - it may finish before Christmas

Disadvantages: Ignorance is destroying lives, No common-sense, Not enough people willing to do the right thing

Foot and Mouth has gripped the country for many months now but I cannot help thinking that we could all be back to normality if it wasn't for a complete lack of common-sense.

I live in the Scottish Borders, an area currently caught in the latest outbreak thanks to an individual from the Hexham farming community being able to walk right into a local farm possibly bringing foot and mouth with him.

How was this possible? Surely the farmers are still taking every precaution to stop the spread of the disease?

Well - the answer is no, they are not, and they haven't been for quite a while.

My home is close to a number of sheep farms, and my drive to work takes me past many more. So I can definitely say with authority that what I am about to describe is what I have seen and not rumour...

Now when the outbreak started all farms had disinfectant mats, warning signs, the works. But to be honest, it was even lack lustre back then, despite their being 1000's of cattle/sheep killed a day.

An example of this less than ideal approach was demonstrated by a local farm having a disinfectant strip at the entrance to its land. Now you are probably thinking that surely this was the right thing - well this strip was less than a metre long. In other words, a standard car tyre has a circumference of around a metre, so the strip should have been at least one metre in length. But what about tractor tyres, did such farmers actually stop to think that a tractors tyres are many times bigger than a cars and hence the disinfectant strip would really need to be 5m in length!?

Anyway, that was then. But after the first couple of months everyone became a little too relaxed. The disinfectant mats disappeared, the warning signs vanished ... and lo and behold we now have a new scare!

Of course the NFU have always been quick to blame the government (and the NFU may have had a point) but what about some of their own membe
rs who have so obviously not taken the right precautions. Unfortunately these less-than-careful farmers do not appear to be a minority.

So here we are, right back to where we started. Now after all this misfortune you would have thought that the farmers would finally plug in their brains and start acting like they really want to protect their livelihoods. But no! Can you believe that despite the latest scare in my area that a large country organisation (possibly a gun club) had a members meeting with 30 or more cars on top of a local moor ... which was covered in sheep! The same sheep who are currently classed as 'at risk'.

Now I am not sure whether this is a 'farmers' organisation but I definitely recognised local farmers cars amongst those parked up on the moor.

Worse still, the local farms still do not have new disinfectant strips. How can such farmers be so sure that they are home-free and the disease will 'ignore' their farm?

I am not a farmer, and do not claim to truly understand their difficulties. But I am a tax payer who is partly footing the bill for this continued incompetence of both farmers and government.

As a final note - I am dog owner and like many of those in my village I have abided by the rules laid down with regard to walking in the country. Hence I have two slightly unhappy, fat dogs. Now I have let this happen as I realised my responsibility as a British citizen to help stop the spread of the disease ... and it doesn't even affect my livelihood. SO WHY IS IT THAT SOME FARMERS CANNOT DO THE SAME WHEN THEY HAVE SUCH A VESTED INTEREST IN THE ERADICATION OF THE DISEASE.

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