The spectre of a widespread FMD outbreak is too terrible to contemplate, particularly coming hard on the heels of floods causing widespread damage and crop loss. Those who love our countryside, especially those involved in farming, know only too well what impact this disease had in 2001. Tens of thousands of livestock were slaughtered in Shropshire, including many healthy animals, several farmers went out of business, some tragically took their own lives. It has taken years for the rural economy to recover.
The first lesson from the last outbreak was for immediate controls on at-risk animal movements. DEFRA has acted to halt movements nationwide, but were the mechanisms in place to do so fast enough? If this is an isolated incident, which we all hope it is, it should stamp out the disease quickly.
At this time of year many farms have stock getting ready for market, either for meat or stores for fattening on other farms. If movement controls are in force for long this will pose severe difficulties for farmers keeping their animals fed.
Other questions need to be asked. If Pirbright is the source of the outbreak, how could such a key laboratory, used to dealing with virulent disease, have had its bio-security breached?
Why was one of the largest sheep markets in southern England allowed to disperse thousands of sheep across England from Thame (in Buckinghamshire) on Friday without additional bio-security measures?
DEFRA's core funding was slashed last year to pay for the Rural Payments Agency debacle. How much was cut from animal health and veterinary service budgets? Have security procedures and experienced scientists been jettisoned in favour of students to help fund Gordon Brown's cuts, as the Science & Technology Select Committee suspected last year?
Government must first focus on ensuring the disease does not spread. Thereafter it has some tough questions to answer.
