Time to Save the Sacrificial Lambs - Financial Times - 21 Apr 2001

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Time to Save the Sacrificial Lambs:

Farmer Alan Beat will not offer up his flock to save a 'senseless' export

industry

 

Financial Times; Apr 21, 2001

 

By ALAN BEAT

 

Thirteen years ago I moved away from the pressures of UK industry for a new

lifestyle in smallholding, and now live with my family on 16 acres in rural

Devon. We have bred our own small sheep flock over this time by selecting for

high fleece quality; this forms the basis of small enterprises in

hand-spinning, natural dyeing, craft courses and school visits.

 

Now we find ourselves in a foot-and-mouth disease hotspot where the policy of

the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food includes the slaughter of

healthy livestock on farms adjoining infected sites. Smallholders such as us

are living in dread, not of the disease itself, but of the Maff killing squads

that circle around it.

 

Foot-and-mouth disease is an unpleasant viral condition that affects

cloven-hoofed animals, but is rarely fatal to adult stock and most definitely

is not the "killer plague" that we have been misled into believing. This

outbreak has clearly illustrated that symptoms are difficult to spot, or even

non-existent, in adult sheep.

 

We already live with, and routinely vaccinate against, serious conditions such

as enterotox-aemia - a bacterial invasion of the digestive system; and lamb

dysentery, so why not vaccinate against foot-and-mouth?

 

There is much scientific debate on this issue, but there is a strong body of

international support in favour of vaccination as an integral part of disease

control. The UK is thus largely isolated in its slaughter-only policy. No other

country has ever attempted a cull on this scale before. It is unknown

territory, yet recent outbreaks elsewhere have been quickly and effectively

halted by vaccination, with slaughter limited only to small numbers of infected

animals at the source.

 

Historically, Britain has led the world into believing that efficient

management can eradicate foot-and-mouth, so that "disease-free status" has been

written into the rules of world trade. But now the UK is caught in this trap of

its own making, as many other countries have promptly banned imports of our

meat and meat products. To escape the bans and resume exports, the UK must

regain its disease-free status.

 

This lies at the heart of the crisis. The disease itself is not dangerous,

there are no risks to human health, and so all that remains is the economic

case. While foot-and-mouth disease is present, the UK's agricultural exports

are blocked.

 

What are these exports? Nearly all are to European Union member states, with

insignificant amounts to the rest of the world. Leaving aside products that are

not affected by disease status, government figures for 2000 show exports worth

Pounds 310m, of which sheep-related products are the most significant item by

far at Pounds 250m. This represents 125,000 tonnes, or 32 per cent of total UK

output, or about 7m lambs. Most of this left our shores as meat, but 764,000

live lambs were transported by road to France, the Netherlands, Italy and

Greece.

 

Horrific journeys of up to 48 hours in triple-decked lorries, each holding

2,000 animals, and ending in slaughter at unsuitable premises, have been

graphically portrayed in the media. It is partly to return to this live trade,

loathed by the public and by many farmers, that the UK government is now

slaughtering healthy livestock on a vast scale.

 

Provisional figures for 2000 show that imports of sheep meat totalled 129,000

tonnes (4,000 tonnes more than was exported). So in reality the UK needs all

its lamb, and has to import frozen lamb from New Zealand to make up the

shortfall, caused by exporting a third of its own produce. Spare me the "global

free market" cry, for no sane person can pretend that this makes any sense. The

truth is that the "export trade" so desperately defended by farming leaders and

government alike is a myth.

 

Against the perceived "loss of exports" must be balanced the cost of

implementing the slaughter policy. Compensation to farmers for slaughtered

livestock and associated losses is Pounds 600m so far and rising fast, but this

pales into insignificance beside the cost to the wider economy. Estimates vary,

but by any reckoning the UK economy has already been damaged by many times more

than the value of "lost exports". The tourism and leisure industry alone is

said to be losing Pounds 100m a week. A six-month epidemic could well cause

damage of several billion pounds to the economy as a whole. So how can this

mass slaughter policy make economic sense?

 

We are left wondering why it is that the National Farmers Union resolutely

refuses to accept international scientific advice and the increasing

groundswell of public opinion within the UK that vaccination, even at this

advanced stage, should be used to control the epidemic.

The NFU, led by president Ben Gill, has betrayed the best interests of those

it claims to represent. More than 1,000 members have lost their livestock and

their living, with several thousands more to follow, and for what? On top of

that, the NFU only speaks for fewer than one in three farmers as its membership

now stands at just 53,000 out of a UK total of 180,000.

 

A growing number of farmers is questioning Maff's right to slaughter uninfected

sheep. The legal situation is a grey area, and one website, www.sheepdrove.

com, offers farmers suggestions on how to argue their case to save their stock.

 

Personally, I am not prepared to sacrifice our sheep flock, which is very

special to us, in order to regain an export trade that has no economic basis in

reality. The barbaric slaughter policy should be abandoned in favour of a more

rational and consensual approach, using vaccination alongside localised

slaughter of only infected livestock. A vaccination programme does not mean the

permanent loss of "disease-free status" and so meat exports (but not live

lambs, please) could in time be resumed - but only where there is a real need

to export.

 

This crisis is entirely created by man, not disease. It need not be a crisis at

all, and no more healthy animals should be pointlessly slaughtered.

 

alan.beat (AT) talk21 (DOT) com

 

* Information:

www.sheepdrove.com

www.whatarewe-swallowing.com

www.maff.gov.uk