Government slammed over Foot and Mouth

New research published by Friends of the Earth today reveals that the Government failed to act after authoritative warnings over the danger of foot and mouth disease.

Key bodies including the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the EU Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare warned the Government repeatedly that intensive farming and large scale animal movements would seriously increase the risk of foot and mouth disease (FMD) and other transmittable diseases. But the Government failed to take action to reduce animal movements, reduce the density of animals on farms or even warn farmers of the need to take out adequate insurance cover [1].

FOE wants to know whether Agriculture Secretary Nick Brown was told of these warnings and, if so, whether he warned his Cabinet colleagues. FOE is also challenging the Government to give details of any action it took to reduce the risk of FMD and to ensure that farmers had adequate insurance cover.

Warnings the Government has received since May 1997 include:

• In 1998, The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation warned that Europe was especially vulnerable to livestock diseases because of the large-scale animal movements with the EU as well as the high density, even overcrowding, of animals on European farms.
• In 1999, the EU Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare stated that the EU was at "extraordinary high" risk of FMD because of the presence of the disease in countries on the edge of the EU.
• In 1999, the Italian Public Health Ministry said that "changes in the livestock industry, such as the rapid transportation of animals over long distances, and the concentration of livestock in large intensive units, are conductive to outbreaks of exotic diseases which can occur unexpectedly".

Neil Crumpton, spokesperson for FOE Cymru said:

"The rapid long-distance spread of foot and mouth disease is just one of the disbenefits of cheap road haulage and diesel fuel that farmers and the farming unions have even recently lobbied so successfully on. Farming in future needs to be based on locally produced food sold in local markets and preferably organic."

Commenting, Charles Secrett, Executive Director at Friends of the Earth, said:

"Spin doctors and news managers have offered us many scapegoats for the foot and mouth crisis, from individual farmers to Chinese restaurants.

But it is now becoming clear that the Government itself must face criticism. It has repeatedly ignored warnings about the way we farm and the consequent risks of epidemics. Small farmers, the tourism industry and tax-payers are now paying a very heavy price for MAFF's incompetence and the Government's love affair with intensive farming.

He added:

"Once foot and mouth is under control, we must have a fundamental review of how we farm in this country. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture's plan to drive our remaining small farmers out of business should be dropped like an organic hot potato. We need a sustainable future for farming and food production, not a subsidy bonanza for giant agri-businesses."

FOE is writing to Prime Minister Tony Blair calling for answers on why warnings were ignored, and to urge him to hold a public inquiry into the causes of the current outbreak of FMD and the effectiveness of the responses to it. FOE will also be asking Ben Gill, President of the National Farmers Union, why farmers were not warned about the increased risks.

Notes

1. According to NFU Mutual, the largest provider of agricultural insurance, only 10% of farmers are insured for FMD.

2. Europe vulnerable to livestock epidemics, warning delivered at FAO press conference, 17 February 1998.

"Europe faces a growing threat of devastating animal disease epidemics", FAO warned "This is mainly the result of long-distance transport of animals and increasingly dense livestock populations within certain areas in the region... The trend toward moving animals and animal products over long distances has accelerated within the European Union (EU) since the creation of the single market, according to FAO. And the opening of trade routes between Europe, the Near East and the Commonwealth of Independent States could allow animals infected with diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) to enter Central or even Western Europe if they escape detection by official border controls."

3. Strategy for Emergency Vaccination against Foot and Mouth Disease. Report of the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare. Adopted 10 March 1999.