NEWS ARCHIVES back to 28th April ~ BEST of the PRESS
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October 2002
Newspaper Archive ended October 2002. After that, relevant items in the press were commented on in the daily update.
Government sued over foot and mouth bill
Telegraph
By David Harrison, Environment Correspondent
Dozens of firms plan to take legal action against the Government because they are still owed millions of pounds for clean-up work during last year's foot and mouth crisis.
More than 100 contractors have not been paid for invoices totalling more than £400 million, according to the Government's own figures. Many told The Telegraph that they would have to go to court or face bankruptcy.
The companies accused the Government of failing to honour contracts signed 18 months ago when ministers urged them to halt the spread of disease.....more
Oct 13 02
Watson: 'I wish I'd never started hunt ban'
Scotsman
HAMISH MACDONELL SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR
LORD Watson, the Labour MSP responsible for making fox hunting illegal in Scotland, wished he had never started the ban" in the first place, it was claimed last night.
Two of his constituents have come forward to claim he told them at a surgery that he regretted piloting the controversial bill through the Scottish Parliament.
Jacqueline Prosser and Billy Shaw, both from Lord Watsons Glasgow Cathcart constituency, said he wished he "had never started" the process because it caused so much trouble.
Ms Prosser said Lord Watson - a close ally of Jack McConnell, the First Minister - also admitted to introducing the legislation because he wished to follow advice given to all Labour MSPs by Donald Dewar. The late first minister told his MSPs that they should all do something to get noticed.
She said she had even advised Lord Watson to "do a U-turn" and walk away from the bill, arguing this would generate more respect in the community than pursuing the contentious proposals through parliament.
The claims from Lord Watsons constituents represent a significant blow to the anti-hunt campaign, particularly in England, where the legislation he piloted is being used to justify similar moves.
Angry pro-hunt supporters seized on the remarks, demanding to know why Lord Watson had pursued his controversial bill.
Lord Watson, who is now minister for tourism and sport, has always made it clear that he objects strongly to fox hunting, but has denied previously claims that he wished he had never introduced his bill.
He said of the latest revelations: "I do not recall the conversation and I will not discuss a conversation I had a year ago."
However, Ms Prosser, who once stood for the Liberal Democrats in a council election but insists she is not political any more, said the surgery meeting had taken place at the Couper Institute in Cathcart, about one year ago.
She said: "I asked him about fox hunting. He admitted in front of three of us, his constituents, that he wished he had never started the fox-hunting ban."......
Oct 9 02
09:00 - 08 October 2002
No one in the Westcountry needs reminding of the heartache suffered by farmers in the darkest days of the foot and mouth crisis.
But one year on, as farmers restock and attempt to rebuild their lives, British agriculture still remains painfully fragile.
The statistics tell a harsh tale - the numbers simply do not add up to a viable income for many farmers, especially those with smaller properties.
more
09:00 - 08 October 2002
Westcountry MEP, farmer, and Conservative agriculture spokesman
There is no doubt that farming is on the verge of collapse, and with rural incomes and optimism in the future at an all time low, many of our farmers in the South West see little prospect of survival.
Yet there is reason to believe that we can make a future for ourselves if the right decisions are made. Firstly, our farmers deserve to have their ideas and their proposals heard by those in Whitehall. All around Europe, agriculture is valued enough to be listened to and promoted by those in government.
It is hard to see the farmers in France being so roundly ignored and dismissed by the French government. Given the opportunity, farmers in the UK have as much flair, entrepreneurship and business acumen as the dot.com gurus and high-tech business leaders who seem so important to Tony Blair. However, there are a number of key areas where if they wanted to, the Government could help us over this current problem....more
Oct 3 02
09:00 - 08 October 2002
Beef farmer Richard Haddock has been through hell and beyond.
Mr Haddock, 44, from Kingswear in South Devon, lost 150 animals during the foot and mouth crisis, although ironically none of them was infected with the disease.
But his troubles began in 1995, when he discovered that an animal he had bought was infected with BSE.
He immediately lost a lucrative contract exporting his stock to Germany.
By the end of 1996, his business had recorded a loss of £170,000.
"It nearly bankrupted us," he recalled. "We had to cut right back, and stopped buying new machinery - we were just selling whatever we could for whatever we could get.
"And then, when we were starting to climb our way out, foot and mouth came along."
Mr Haddock's farm was in one of the first areas of Devon to be affected by foot and mouth disease.
Although his animals escaped the cull that swept neighbouring farms, Mr Haddock was not allowed to leave his farm for three weeks. Eventually, dire shortages of animal fodder meant that 150 of the older cows had to be slaughtered - most of whom were pregnant.
"We held out for as long as we could, but my vet said we had no chance," said Mr Haddock. "We couldn't get a movement licence, so we weren't allowed to take the animals anywhere.
"We normally have 350 suckling calves, but this year only 200 were born because we only had 200 cows.
"We missed a year's calving - it's the problem of the knock-on effect."
Mr Haddock, who is the National Farmers' Union (NFU) livestock representative for the South West, is now looking to the future.
"After BSE, I decided that we had to take charge beyond the farmgate," he said.
With other local farmers, he set up the Triple S Ranch meat processing plant, which has been a huge success.
In the last 18 months, the co-operative plant's turnover has soared from £300,000 to £4 million.
Mr Haddock believes that Margaret Beckett should talk less and act more by encouraging this kind of project.
"We have done this without an iota of help from the Government," he said.
"We are not asking for anything for free, but we do want loans, advice and a bit of help."
Oct 8 02
Ease movement rules, say Tories
FWi
By Isabel Davies in Bournemouth
TORY rural affairs spokesman David Lidington has called for animal movement restrictions to be reduced from 20 days to six.
Mr Lidington said standstill rules preventing farmers from selling animals for 20 days after stock are brought onto a farm, were intolerable.
The restrictions were introduced to stop diseases such as foot-and-mouth from spreading after livestock movements were blamed for exacerbating last year's epidemic.
Policy makers had to stop loading regulations onto farmers and the 20-day rule was a good example of one regulation that should be relaxed, said Mr Lidington.
"There is an overwhelming case for that limit to be reduced," he told a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference on Monday (7 October).
"It is arrogant in the extreme for government to be lecturing farmers on biosecurity when they have failed to maintain biosecurity at ports and airports."
A six-day restriction on movements would be a compromise between disease protection and normal market movements, Mr Lidington told delegates in Bournemouth.
An element of this involved working to reduce the burden of government and regulation on farmers, said Mr Lidington.
"We have to help reconnect farmers with their customer and part of that is to get government off farmers' backs," he said.
"There has got to be a drive to reduce red tape."
CLA president Edward Greenwell stressed it was important people did not try to downplay the importance of the farming industry because of what was built upon it.
The food that was produced in the UK was the basis of a huge processing and packaging industry many times the size of farming, said Sir Edward.
"If you lose primary production from the UK be very sure that those industries will follow with a far bigger impact on our economy than anyone normally acknowledges."
Oct 7 02
FIVE RURAL ISSUES THE WMN SAYS MARGARET BECKETT MUST TACKLE
Western Morning News
09:00 - 07 October 2002
Margaret Beckett's performance at the Labour Party conference last week was a bitter disappointment to rural dwellers who believe she is not doing anything to earn her title of Rural Affairs Secretary. In a series continuing throughout this week, the WMN will outline the issues the Minister should be addressing..... (See more):
NOW YOU MUST ACT ON COUNTRYSIDE ISSUES
Western Moming News
09:00 - 07 October 2002
Everyone agrees that the problems besetting rural England are complex and deep-rooted.
But it is the Government's seeming inability and lack of desire to change matters that continues to infuriate country people.
Rural Secretary Margaret Beckett was last week accused of treating the countryside with contempt after her keynote speech at the Labour Party conference failed to address any of the issues plaguing rural areas.
It was Mrs Beckett who claimed at the European Parliament's inquiry into the foot and mouth crisis that she had never heard of a bungled cull in the Devon parish of Knowstone.
It was also Mrs Beckett who dismissed Devon's foot and mouth inquiry as meaningless and "purely local."
Now the Western Morning News is challenging Mrs Beckett's ineptitude. All this week we will be highlighting the problems faced by rural communities and examining the ways in which they can be solved, in other words doing Mrs Beckett's job for her. (read on)
Oct 7 02
Adapt or quit, farmers are told
The Scotsman
Fordyce Maxwell Rural Affairs Editor
Professor Phil Thomas has a message for farmers. It is that British farming is slightly bigger than Morrisons, the smallest of the six big supermarket groups, and rather smaller than Somerfield in fifth place.
But not all of his speech to an Anglo/Scottish Borders conference was as bleak as that. Some parts were bleaker as he put his theme of a future for food and farming in the region into a world context.
Describing a speech as "thought provoking" should not be done lightly, but the former head of the Scottish Agricultural College who chaired this years inquiry into foot-and-mouth disease in Cumbria gave a talk to decision-makers in the Borders, Cumbria, Dumfries and Galloway and Northumberland which was precisely that.
Following is an outline of what he said.
Oct 7 02
Re: To renew or not?
Telegraph
Date: 6 October 2002
As a National Farmers' Union (NFU) member of 54 years, and a former branch chairman, I was amused by the dismissive response (Letters, September 29) from the NFU's Director-General (no less!) to Christopher Booker's splendid article (News, September 22).
What has happened to the NFU in the past year or two is that there has been an almost complete erosion of democratic principles. "Director-General", indeed. This high-faluting title is duplicated by "Regional-Directors" and, under them, "Policy-Directors". What has happened to the annual general meeting, at which NFU policies were democratically determined?
Well, er, there is a sort of annual "conference", but county branch executive meetings are a thing of the past. And local branches never meet now. They don't even exist. But the NFU president himself can relax. If he "keeps his nose clean" and doesn't make waves, he could find himself in the next Honours List. It is the usual thing.
My problem is this: should I renew my annual subscription?
From:
Malcolm Kidd, Lazonby, Cumbria
Oct 6 02
Dispute over evidence of badgers' guilt
Times
By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent
BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS is caused by the organism Mycobacterium bovis, a relative of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis organism that provokes TB in human beings.
While relatively harmless to humans, as meat and pasteurised milk from infected cattle are safe to consume, the bacterium is endemic in several kinds of British wildlife, particularly badgers. This has provoked a bitter scientific controversy about the role of these animals in spreading the disease in livestock.
Interest in the role of badgers in bovine TB began in the 1970s, when the disease, which had virtually been eradicated from the British herd, began to reappear.
Farmers and epidemiologists noted a correlation between a increase in badger numbers after the 1973 Badger Protection Act and a rising incidence of infection in cattle. The discovery of an infected dead badger on an infected farm further suggested a link.
Scientists were unable to make a firm connection. However, a further increase in badger numbers occurred after the Badger Protection Act of 1992. The population rose by an estimated 80 per cent, according to the National Farmers Union. At the same time, the number of infected herds doubled to more than 1,000.
In 1997, research by Professor Sir John Krebs, now chairman of the Food Standards Agency, found "compelling evidence that badgers are a significant source of infection".
The result was a £34 million government study that began in 1998 and is known as the "Krebs trial". It is investigating whether local culls of badgers have a significant effect on the incidence of TB in cattle.
Ten trial sites in the West Country were selected, in which badgers are trapped and shot, and the impact on TB rates assessed. The trial was due to finish next year, but it was disrupted by last years foot-and-mouth outbreak, which limited researchers ability to find and trap badgers. It has yet to resume in earnest.
The continuing lack of evidence for a link has only fed the controversy. Animal welfare and conservation associations, such as the National Federation of Badger Groups, argue that even the experimental cull is unjustified.
Bovine TB is much more likely to be transmitted by the movement of infected cattle, which are rarely tested for the illness when sold. Campaigners also say that little is known about other types of wildlife, such as deer, which can transmit the bacterium.
Farmers and advocates of the Krebs trial say that the correlation between rising badger numbers and the rising incidence of bovine TB appears to be too close to be a coincidence, and that the experimental culls are necessary to find out whether there is a link.
As there is no effective test for the disease in live badgers, they say culling is essential to judge the extent of infection in badger populations.
Last year,a study was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society. It added weight to the claims of cull supporters, as it found evidence that badgers forage in cattle sheds and feed troughs.
There are an estimated 300,000 badgers in Britain, according to the most recent survey from 1997. Under current legislation, farmers can apply to the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for permission to cull badgers or move setts that cause damage to buildings or crops, or to protect against bovine TB. No licences for TB culls have been granted since Labour came to power in 1997.
Oct 5 02
3,000 cattle herds under strict surveillance as TB escalates
Times
By Valerie Elliott, Countryside Editor
BRITAIN is facing its most serious outbreak of tuberculosis in cattle for more than 35 years after confirmation that the disease has spread to the Midlands and northern England. Official figures to the end of August show that 3,022 herds are under strict government surveillance, compared to 1,908 two years ago.
An increase had been predicted because of the suspension of bovine TB testing during last years foot-and-mouth outbreak, but the figures mask an even bleaker trend. The number of animals going down with the disease on each farm has risen from an average of two to between eight and ten. Since January 12,323 cattle have been slaughtered compared with 4,827 two years ago.
Particularly worrying is the diseasse's spread from its traditional pockets in Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Hereford, and Worcester. It has expanded throughout the West Country and moved north into Shropshire, Cheshire, Lancashire and Cumbria, east to Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire, and, in Wales, it has moved from the border area to parts of the west and southwest. There are also 85 cases in Scotland, not traditionally a centre for the disease. Every infected farm is losing money and disease controls make it impossible to cover costs.
The rapid escalation of the disease has alarmed farmers' leaders and the European Union and there have been calls for more regular testing. That, however, would add extra costs to the hard-pressed Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Defra has already proposed that tests should be carried out not by vets in private practice, but by lower salaried animal health officials.
Because of the backlog in routine testing after the foot-and-mouth outbreak, there are still 15,576 farms in need of checking. Even though Elliot Morley, the Animal Health Minister, announced an extra £3 million to deal with the testing in July, it could take another six months to clear.
There is no threat to general human health -- pasteurisation kills any bacteria in milk and proper cooking destroys it in meat -- but the NFU is concerned that, with such a high reservoir of the disease in cattle and other wildlife, there could be higher risks to farmers and farm workers.
There is a unanimous feeling in the farming industry that the Government must act to deal with the vast reservoir of TB in wildlife, particularly badgers. Ministers are under pressure to introduce new measures in advance of the Krebs trials, set up to establish a proven link between badgers and the incidence of bovine TB. But Mr Morley has refused to allow any cull of diseased badgers in blackspot areas until the outcome of the trials is known.
The minister is, however, attempting to limit the effects of the disease on farmers. He is expected to announce a policy U-turn next week, allowing some farmers to continue trading even if their herds are subject to surveillance.
Dick Sibley, for the British Cattle Veterinary Society, said yesterday: "We just cannot wait four or five years for an outcome to Krebs or 20 years for a vaccine. Something must be done. Most of the government measures seem to be about reducing losses on farms with TB, but it would be better if the disease was prevented. It is obvious there is a wildlife reservoir and to ignore it is stupid. We need radical control and it will need some culling."
Neil Cutler, chairman of the NFU's animal health committee, said: "The Government refuses to do more until a result of Krebs. By then the disease will have spread throughout the country."
Oct 5 02
A FORTY-POINT plan to avoid a repeat of the foot-and-mouth crisis calls for improved border protection and increased use of vaccination.
The draft report by a European parliament's temporary committee, points to numerous weaknesses in the UK government's response to the outbreak.
In particular, it refers to shortcomings in the contingency plans, inadequate staffing levels, and delays in imposing movement restrictions.
It also criticises violations of animal welfare legislation and intimidation of farmers by those involved in the cull.
"These shortcomings caused considerable stress among those concerned, many of whom were still suffering psychologically months after the crisis," says the draft.
The report calls for emergency vaccination to become "the first choice option" when an outbreak occurs.
It will still be necessary to have a stamping out policy on infected farms, but beyond that animals should be allowed to live.
Report author, Wolfgang Kreissl-Dorfler said current slaughter-based controls assigned "undue priority to the trade policy aspects".
More attention should be paid to the social and psychological impact of foot-and-mouth.
But the report dismisses a return to general prophylactic vaccination.
"This is not yet an option to aspire to, because there are seven different stereotypes which cannot be tackled by a single vaccination."
It goes on to make a number of suggestions as to how border controls can be tightened, including extra customs staff at airports and increased use of sniffer dogs.
There is also a real need for member states to improve disease monitoring and revamp their foot-and-mouth contingency plans.
In future, European Union compensation should be conditional on member states having applied the rules properly.
Committee members gave their broad support to the draft, but some Green MEPs wanted the wording toughened up on the role of vaccination.
However, Labour MEP Gordon Adam felt it was too critical of the UK government.
The report will be finalised by the temporary committee in November and adopted by the full parliament in December.
By then, commission proposals for a new F&M directive should have been issued, including many of the suggestions now emerging from the parliament.
Oct 3 02
NATHAN PYNN
09:00 - 03 October 2002
Farming leaders joined yesterday in condemnation of the Government's handling of the foot and mouth crisis and urged the Prime Minister to take heed of the draft EU inquiry released earlier this week.
The final findings of the report will not be known until later this year but already the draft document drawn up by a special European Parliament committee of inquiry has been endorsed by farming leaders across the Westcountry who have criticised the Government's handling of the crisis.
Anthony Gibson, regional director for the South West National Farmers' Union, said he supported the vast majority of the report.
"The report does not put the boot into the Government for its handling of foot and mouth unduly," he said.
"It does recommend that vaccination should be a first resort and not a last resort and that there should be no more pyres."
Farmers have interpreted the draft report as vindication for constant calls for a public inquiry.
David Handley, of Farmers For Action, has been campaigning for the Government to hold a full public inquiry. "This report shows exactly what the farmers have been saying from the outset about the Government's handling of the whole foot and mouth outbreak.
"I think the only decent thing the Government can do now is to give everyone in the country who was affected by the crisis an official apology.
"The Government bungled their way through the foot and mouth outbreak from start to finish and this report shows just how wrong they were.
"We have always said that vaccination was the best way forward and this report has agreed with us."
Richard Haddock, a beef farmer at Kingsweare, South Devon, said he wanted to see farmers properly compensated.
"We lost 150 animals in all and were put on a D-notice last year. I don't think the Government has learnt anything and nothing will change unless they take action now to stop sources of foot and mouth entering the country."
The committee, which has been collating evidence from various sources, has sat since January. One of the most poignant moments during the consultation process was a series of meetings held at Knowstone, North Devon.
The village was at the centre of a bungled cull during the foot and mouth crisis which saw many farmers bullied into having their animals slaughtered.
Neil Parish, Conservative MEP and agriculture spokesman in the European Parliament, said the report findings were surprisingly strong.
"The author of the report, Wolfgang Kreissl-Dorfler, is a German socialist and it was known that Labour sent Lord Whitty over to try to make him put in the report what the British Government wanted.
"It is an absolute condemnation on the handling of the foot and mouth crisis by the Government. Knowstone was probably the first time the MEPs really saw the human suffering which took place during the crisis. This has had a big influence over the report so far."
The draft report will go before committee before being published in December.
npynn@westcountrypublications.co.uk
Oct 3 02
Blair's letter sidesteps rural row
Guardian
Protest march was a credit to Countryside Alliance, says PM
Anne Perkins, political correspondent
Saturday September 28, 2002
The Guardian
Tony Blair has backed away from confrontation with the Countryside Alliance, telling its chairman, John Jackson, that last Sunday's demonstration was "a credit" to the pro-hunting organisation.
In a letter that appears to seek to isolate the question of a hunting ban from wider issues of of rural decline, Mr Blair said: "While you will not be surprised to learn that I did not agree with some of the views expressed during the march, the numbers involved, and the way those took part behaved, was certainly a credit to your organisation."
After a week that began with news that the Prince of Wales had complained privately to the prime minister at the unfairness of a hunt ban, Mr Blair said that he "strongly believed in continuing dialogue, not confrontation".
Alun Michael, minister for rural affairs and the minister directly concerned with the issue, later stressed that he had found this month's three-day evidence session on hunting "important and illuminating". Alliance supporters regard the sessions as a fig leaf for preparation for an outright ban.
Last weekend, Mr Michael (said to be irritated the alliance was demanding action in many areas where the government had already intervened) sounded dismissive of Sunday's demonstration that brought 400,000 to London. He said it was "confused" and he did not know what it was about. Downing Street supported the off-hand approach, which disappointed alliance leaders who had hoped for some kind of olive branch.
In his letter, Mr Blair acknowledged "this has been a difficult period for people living in rural communities", and recognised that hunting was only one of "a broader range of issues and views - matters which have been brought into particular focus by the impact of foot and mouth disease both on farming and the tourism industry in rural areas".
.......
Oct 2 02
MEPs slate foot and mouth cull
Guardian
Andrew Osborn in Brussels
Wednesday October 2, 2002
The Guardian
The government's decision to slaughter 6.5m animals during the foot and mouth outbreak is unlikely to have done anything to halt the spread of the disease, an inquiry by MEPs has concluded.
In the most damning assessment of the government's handling of the crisis to date, a committee of inquiry set up by the European parliament has produced a draft report which claims that much of the strategy for tackling the disease was deeply flawed.
It has been shrugged off by the government but seized upon by Tories and Green campaigners. It is "a damning indictment of the way the government responded to the crisis", Caroline Lucas, the inquiry's vice-president and a Green party MEP for south-east England, said yesterday.
The report claims the slaughter of 6.5m animals last year achieved little or nothing and may have violated animal welfare laws. In future emergency vaccination and not mass slaughter should be the "control measure of first choice".
Other complaints include that the army was drafted in too late to help with culling, and farmers faced too much red tape before they could get compensation.
Oct 2 02
Court told of sheep shooting distress
BBC
An "inexperienced" slaughterman shot "willy-nilly, like a shooting gallery" at a field of stray sheep during the foot-and-mouth crisis, a court has heard.
Adrian Walker, 33, was employed by Monmouthshire Council to cull animals which had broken livestock movement restrictions - put in place to try and halt the spread of last year's outbreak.
Movement of sheep was restricted at the time
He was stopped from taking shots at the flock herded in a field at Gilwern, near Abergavenny, at the height of the crisis last April, after villagers raised concerns over what was happening.
The shooting was captured by a resident on a video camera and is likely to be shown to the jury later on Tuesday.
Twenty one ewes and 11 lambs had been rounded-up in a field when Mr Walker, from Grosmont, near Abergavenny, shot the first ewe near the gate.
He then started to shoot the sheep in the field from a distance of about 30 metres, said Philip Marshall, prosecuting.
The recommended distance for killing sheep through the head was at a range of 25 centimetres.
'Clearly distressed'
"Residents were watching as this was occurring," Mr Marshall said.
"Some will say that he was firing willy-nilly, like a shooting gallery," he said.
One sheep was apparently shot up to three times before it died.
After "clearly distressed" people living close to the field voiced concerns, the animals were taken to a nearby barn and killed.
Firearms certificate
Mr Marshall said the local authority had taken on Mr Walker - who denies two charges of breaching health and safety regulations - to kill stray animals during the disease outbreak.
A butcher by trade, he already had a slaughterman's licence and a firearms certificate.
He had brought a .22 calibre rifle for the marksman's job, and police had amended his firearms certificate accordingly.
But Mr Walker was inexperienced, the prosecution allege, both in using the weapon and in shooting unrestrained animals.
"He should not have agreed to the job and the county council should not have employed him," Mr Marshall told the jury.
The trial continues at Cardiff Crown Court.
posted Oct 2 02
DESPAIR AND DISBELIEF OVER LATEST GOVERNMENT SNUB TO FARMERS
Western Morning News
Members of Parliament representing rural constituencies in the Westcountry said last night that they were dismayed but not surprised by the dismissive attitude of Tony Blair and Margaret Beckett.
North Cornwall Liberal Democrat MP Paul Tyler said: "I think the Blair Government has lost the plot as far as farming is concerned.
"There is a clear case for saying bring back Nick Brown as Minister for Agriculture.
"Mr Brown had the inestimable advantage that he did not pretend to know it all.
"He listened carefully and tried to make sure that our message got through to Whitehall.
"It was one of the great unfair tragedies of modern politics that he took the rap for the Government's incompetence on foot and mouth."
Mr Tyler warned: "If Mr Blair's Government don't grab hold of the appalling problems facing our farmers, and worst of all the Euro discrepancy, then we are doomed to seeing more and more farmers going out of business and more and more acres of our countryside reverting to unmanaged wilderness."
He added: "I was one of the marchers in London on September 22.
"What struck me was that there were people there not just in response to what has happened to farms and rural communities in the last two years but in the last two decades.
"They are in despair that successive governments have been so urban-biased that they are not even prepared to try and listen."
Hugo Swire, East Devon Conservative MP, said: "You have to give Mrs Beckett marks for arrogance.
"She was arrogant over foot and mouth, arrogant when she was asked to set up an independent inquiry and has not apologised for anything.
"To me she is a deeply flawed Minister with no love, no empathy and no understanding of the problems we face in the countryside.
"Without a doubt she is a below par Minister.
"Well in excess of 400,000 people took part in the Liberty and Livelihood march in London.
"Judging by the response of various members of the Labour Government you begin to wonder whether this Government is made up of Ministers who want to govern the whole country or just some of it.
"They seem to be doing their level best to alienate even their own supporters in the countryside.
"They don't understand the countryside, they don't want to understand it, they just don't like it."
South-East Cornwall MP Colin Breed, the Liberal Democrat Party's spokesman for agriculture and rural affairs, commented: "What has been said, and not been said, at Blackpool today does not come as a complete surprise to me.
"Mrs Beckett has consistently refused to meet myself or my colleagues to discuss issues relating to her portfolio, of which agriculture is a very important part.
"She seems determined to close down any debate or discussion as something which is the fault of globalisation and world markets and which in her view has very little to do with her department.
"She is totally wrong about that.
"Although the Government has commissioned various reports following foot and mouth, they have failed to implement any direct action to alleviate the obvious problem of falling farm incomes.
"For her to say that we have to wait for a mid-term review of the Common Agricultural Policy next year overlooks the fact that is unlikely to produce anything significant.
"We could be waiting another three years for major changes.
"In the meantime, it is quite clear that if the Government does not act soon then the small farmers who predominate in Devon and Cornwall are going to slowly disappear.
"They cannot continue to operate their businesses at a loss.
"We are gradually losing our domestic food production and relying more and more on imports."
Mr Breed added: "The Government has tried to ignore the fact that over 400,000 people decided for whatever reason to go to London and hold a protest about all sorts of issues, of which hunting was just one.
"It is pretending that this does not matter. That is ridiculous."
North Devon Liberal Democrat MP Nick Harvey said: "The Government seems to be living on another planet.
"The fact that more than 400,000 people took to the streets of London in one of the biggest demonstrations that city has ever seen is not scoring on their radar.
"This indifference to an entire chunk of the nation makes a mockery of their 'one-nationism', if one can call it that.
"They are cavalier and impervious to any criticism."
North Devon farmer Bill Norman said British farmers would be quite happy for subsidies to stop if this was also applied to American and European rivals who currently had major advantages and could undercut the British market.
Mr Norman said: "We just hope that we can last out until we see the back of this Government."
Oct 2 02
Oct 1 ~ News of the EU Temporary Committee into FMD
an inquiry concluded that the culling of more than 6.5 million animals may have played no real role in curbing the spread of the disease.
Today's Independent
"Draft conclusions from a committee of MEPs lists sweeping criticisms of government policy and suggests that, in future, vaccination should be considered much earlier in an outbreak...In particular the document argued that the controversial culling policy may, in effect, have been unnecessary.
"It remains controversial and doubtful whether the 24/48 hours contiguous cull strategy was really responsible for curbing the epidemic [halting the increase in the number of cases and bringing about a decrease]," the document stated. "Apart from any other consideration, in many cases it proved impossible to carry out the culls on neighbouring farms within 48 hours."
The conclusions of the rapporteur of the parliament's temporary committee, Wolfgang Kreissl-Dvrfler, make frank criticisms of the Government's handling of the outbreak, which brought economic devastation to much of the countryside.
..."
This is the general message of most of the papers (even the Express manages "Government slammed over farm virus")
who report the EU Inquiry draft. An interesting exception is the Financial Times. John Mason, Food and Rural Affairs Correspondent begins, "Tourism and other industries hit by future outbreaks of foot-and-mouth
disease in Europe should receive compensation similar to farmers ...." He chooses to ignore the criticisms directed at the UK government for the way its policies traumatised farmers
and broke animal welfare laws. Instead, he pursues the line that it was not fair that
"other sectors of the economy - particularly
tourism - are compelled to foot the bill for their own losses arising from
this policy." This is, of course, true enough - but the report is odd in disregarding the condemnatory tone of the EU report. The Times report of the EU draft document: Ministers made outbreak worse, say MEPs".... In individual cases it was also reported that farmers affected had been intimidated and pressurised in connection with the culls," the report says.
"These shortcomings caused considerable stress among those concerned, many of whom were still suffering psychologically as a result months after the crisis."
Interestingly, it is the DailyMail report that is chosen for the EPP-Ed (European Parliament) group news page.
"Britain's handling of the foot and mouth crisis was branded cruel, incompetent and confused ......apparent attempts by the government to stifle the EU committee findings have failed..." Sean Poulter's forthright article : "Britain's handling of the foot and mouth crisis was branded cruel, incompetent and confused yesterday. The report of an EU investigation into last year's alert reveals the lack of a valid contingency plan, crippling bureaucracy and animal suffering on a massive scale. ...Farmers were bullied into allowing their livestock to be killed, the report says, while many of the animals suffered at the hands of poorly-trained slaughtermen.
It suggests that apparent attempts by the government to stifle the EU committee findings have failed. Agriculture Minister Lord Whitty visited the committee chairman, German Social Democrat MEP Wolfgang Kreissl-Doerfler, before the inquiry to put his Government's case. But the report pulls no punches over official involvement....One of the most damning findings is that the strategy of a mass cull probably did not work. The crisis could have been eased with vaccinations, the report says, but the Government bowed to pressure..."
Government slammed over farm virus
Express
A new report into the foot-and-mouth outbreak gives a damning appraisal of
the Government's handling of the crisis.
A draft document drawn up by a special European Parliament committee of
inquiry blames officialdom for adding to farmers' woes with red tape and
bureaucratic delays in dealing with the disposal of slaughtered animals.
It also condemns Government information and says the slimming down of the
state veterinary service over a 20-year period "weakened the capacity for
responding to the crisis".
The report is the first result of the year-long inquiry, in which a
cross-party panel of MEPs has been taking evidence with a remit to assess
the response to the disease and how to handle any future outbreaks.
Dr Caroline Lucas, the inquiry's vice president and Green Party MEP for
South East England, said: "The report is a damning indictment of the way the
Government responded to the crisis.
"The British Government opposed the inquiry, just as it opposed any public
inquiry into the outbreak at a domestic level, but I hope it will listen and
learn.
Tory agriculture spokesman in the European Parliament Neil Parish said:
"This report represents explosive evidence that the Government got it wrong
with the foot-and-mouth crisis. This report contains more criticism of the
UK Government than of all other governments put together.
"Their stubbornness at the time of the crisis hasn't changed, they still
refuse to listen to the needs of our rural communities."
The inquiry is still going on and the final report will be published after
further proposals from committee members. However, it has no legal force and
its recommendations are not binding.
The author, Wolfgang Kreissl-Dorfler, strongly criticises the Government for
not having contingency plans ready for a "serious and extensive" outbreak of
foot and mouth.
Oct 2 02
Cull of 6.5m animals 'may not have affected' spread of foot-and-mouth
Independent
By Stephen Castle in Brussels
01 October 2002
Britain's handling of the foot-and-mouth epidemic faced devastating criticism last night when an inquiry concluded that the culling of more than 6.5 million animals many have played no real role in curbing the spread of the disease.
Draft conclusions from a committee of MEPs lists sweeping criticisms of government policy and suggests that, in future, vaccination should be considered much earlier in an outbreak.
In particular the document argued that the controversial culling policy may, in effect, have been unnecessary.
"It remains controversial and doubtful whether the 24/48 hours contiguous cull strategy was really responsible for curbing the epidemic [halting the increase in the number of cases and bringing about a decrease]," the document stated. "Apart from any other consideration, in many cases it proved impossible to carry out the culls on neighbouring farms within 48 hours."
The conclusions of the rapporteur of the parliament's temporary committee, Wolfgang Kreissl-Dvrfler, make frank criticisms of the Government's handling of the outbreak, which brought economic devastation to much of the countryside.
Among other issues it highlights the poor quality of contingency planning, the delay in calling in the Army, and the lack of information and of resources deployed to combat the crisis.
Neil Parish, the agricultural spokesman for the Conservatives in the European Parliament, said: "This report represents explosive evidence that the Government just got it wrong with the foot-and-mouth crisis in the UK. The report contains more criticism of the UK government than of all other governments put together. Their stubbornness at the time of the crisis hasn't changed, they still refuse to listen to the needs of our rural communities."
MEPs have spent months inquiring into the outbreak across Europe and made visits to the affected areas.
Although the report concluded that the UK could not have predicted the scale of the outbreak, it argued that contingency plans should have included "options for action if the reality were to prove even worse than the assumed 'worst-case' scenario."
It added that, in retrospect, "an immediate nationwide ban on transporting FMD-susceptible animals would have been appropriate when the first case of FMD was detected in the United Kingdom", although it accepted that "large sections of the population would have considered this disproportionate at the time".
Oct 2 02
Waste feed confusion reigns
FWi
THE effectiveness of the ban on swill feeding is thrown into doubt by EU
regulations
Sept 30 02
D-Day for Northampton market
FWi
By Simon Wragg
FARMERS hoping to save Northampton market must make an offer by Monday (30 September), or the auction will be closed.
Andrew Cowling, chairman of the board of directors of Northamptonshire Auctions, said the market would probably shut for good at the end of October.
"Unless we have received a bid from the consortium by the end of this month (Monday, 30 September), then we would not be interested in hearing from the group.
"We intend to close the business on 31 October and there are a number of steps that have to be taken - including redundancies - that must be put in place."
Northamptonshire Auctions has already entered a lock-out agreement with a national developer that aims to acquire the Brackmills site.
The move prevents other parties entering negotiations to buy the market's freehold until talks are finalised.
However, farmers could still secure the market by acquiring the shareholders' capital.
That would give the farmer consortium, led by local producer Richard Sawbridge, control of company assets including the freehold of the market, says Mr Cowling.
The consortium says it offered to buy shares in the company last autumn after securing pledges of £2.4 million from farmers, but its offer was rejected.
Sept 30 02
The last case of foot-and-mouth was confirmed on a farm near Appleby in the Eden Valley on September 30, 2001.
But, despite the fact that a full 12-months have passed, farmers are still labouring under onerous movement restrictions, particularly the now notorious 20-day standstill rule, and many are asking "why?"
The rule means that unless animals arriving on a farm can be quarantined under difficult and sometimes impossible conditions, that farm is effectively shut down for 20 days.
The rule is causing such problems during this, the important autumn sales period when most livestock farmers in and around South Lakeland do the lion's share of their buying and selling, that there has been talk in private of a revolt against the rule.
In public, few will admit to being prepared to break it themselves, but many will say that most others would be.
Chairman of Cumbria NFU Will Cockbain said: "The 20-day standstill is causing unbearable pressure on Cumbria's livestock farmers.
For many Cumbrian farmers it has meant that they have been unable to trade in the normal fashion this autumn and in the long-run their businesses will suffer greatly.
"We are pleased and relieved that we have not had a case of foot-and-mouth disease, but 12 months on we are still a very long way from being back to normal."
There have also been widespread problems administering the animal restrictions left by the epidemic - with Government forms being branded as "gibberish" by Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Collins, who has taken several complaints about the paperwork from farming constituents.
Indeed, Cumbria Trading Standards confirmed that the infamous AML1 form had significant flaws from the start.
The autumn sales period happens, unsurprisingly, every autumn, so the ministry cannot claim to have been caught off-guard by its arrival, especially when ministers were repeatedly warned that they would have to find a way to make the system work.
Their failure to make it work reflects badly on the Government and smacks of the indifference and ignorance of which it is so often accused.
The enormous numbers of people prepared to travel to the Liberty and Livelihood march in London is proof enough that people are generally dissatisfied with what they perceive to be Whitehall's negligence of rural areas and issues.
Many people in this area would agree with livestock auctioneer Kevin Kendal's assessment of the current farming situation as: "Another example of us telling the Government what needs to happen and them taking no notice at all."
One thing DEFRA could and should do to start winning back the trust of the farming community is to look at the impact of the 20-day standstill, reassess the need for its stringency, and come up with a better solution.
Sept 29 02
09:00 - 26 September 2002
Restrictions are likely to remain on farms in the vicinity of a possible outbreak of foot and mouth until the weekend - causing problems for farmers hoping to move animals to market.
A second series of tests of a bull from Higher Redgate Farm, St Cleer, near Liskeard, Cornwall, were negative on Tuesday night. It is hoped that the scare will ultimately prove to be a false alarm and that farmers will be able to move their livestock to market next week.
Peter Hooper, auctioneer and partner with Kivells in Liskeard, said that today's livestock market had been called off and that he hoped to reconvene it next Thursday. He said that 100 cattle and 500 sheep had been booked into today's market, which was cancelled because of the five-mile movement restrictions.
He added that Anna Max, the farmer caught in the middle of the possible foot and mouth case, had always produced very high quality animals.
"Whatever she brings to market is always excellent," he said. "They are really well-bred cattle and all I can say is I will be very glad when this crisis is over and I can see her back at the market achieving good prices for good livestock. Let's just hope that this possible case turns out to be insignificant."
Meanwhile, Mrs Max thanked her neighbours, local vicar and everyone else who has supported her since her farm was placed under movement restrictions. The final results of tests carried out on her 15-month-old pedigree bull Shamus are due back from the Institute for Animal Health Laboratory at Pirbright in Surrey on Saturday.
Jan Kelly, divisional veterinary manager for Cornwall, was optimistic that the case will be negative. "It's looking good after the initial results, but we still have to get all of the tests through." She admitted that there are some farmers that have still not been contacted about the restrictions. "We were thinking of sending out people, but I think that would be over the top."
Sept 26 02
OUTRAGE OVER FMD SCARE
WMN
09:00 - 25 September 2002
Farmers were last night furious after they say they were kept in the dark about a possible Westcountry foot and mouth outbreak.
They said it had appeared the Government had learned nothing from last year's foot and mouth crisis, after which Ministers had pledged to improve communication.
Initial tests at Higher Redgate Farm, St Cleer, near Liskeard, have been negative, but the episode has unnerved farmers who still have bitter memories of last year's crisis.
The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was alerted on Monday evening when a bull owned by farmer Anna Max was showing signs of possible lesions which could have indicated foot and mouth.
Defra imposed movement restrictions on an 8km (five-mile) area around the farm on Monday evening, but the decision was taken not to send officials to alert the 500 farmers in the immediate area.
Livestock farmer John Glencross is furious that Defra officials only warned him about the scare 12 hours after it was found, even though he lives just a mile-and-a-half away.
"Talk about Lessons Learned. It's about time these officials learned some lessons themselves," said Mr Glencross, who farms at Wenmouth Manor, St Neot.
He received a phone call yesterday morning telling him to cease all livestock movements on his land, where he farms pigs, sheep, cattle and llamas. But he had already taken all the necessary precautions after hearing of the incident on the radio.
"After the last episode you would think they might have told us right away, even phoning in the middle of the night if they had to," he added.
Land near Liskeard belonging to James Moon, vice chairman of Cornwall National Farmers' Union, is subject to the movement restrictions. Mr Moon, who also heard about the incident on the radio, said: "It's very worrying that they haven't got a basic plan or guidance with which to work to."
Beef and sheep farmer Graham Higgins runs Higher Trenant Farm, a short distance from Higher Redgate.
He said: "It would be nice to think they have a plan so that farmers could be informed as soon as possible, to lessen the risk of it spreading."
Mr Higgins sympathised with Anna Max. He said: "I feel very, very sorry for her. Nobody wants foot and mouth to come back again. We have been through all that in the last 18 months and we never want to see it again."
Speaking exclusively to the WMN, Mrs Max, who has farmed for more than 20 years, spoke of the distress caused by the incident.
"I have got absolutely no adjectives to describe how upset I feel because, not only are my animals at risk, but also those of my neighbouring friends. It has been an absolute shell-shock.
"I was dreading telling my neighbours, but they have been very, very supportive. It's an awful task to have to tell somebody that you might be the bearer of something so terrible."
Mrs Max contacted a vet on Saturday after Shamus, a 15-month-old, home-bred, pedigree Limousin bull from her breeding unit fell ill. He remained sick over the weekend, but did not display any possible symptoms of foot and mouth until Monday evening, when examined by two Government vets.
"The lesions are not entirely typical of foot and mouth, but the vets have no idea of what they could be if they are not," added Mrs Max.
A Form C notice was immediately ordered on Monday evening, placing movement restrictions on farms in a five-mile radius. But after a special telephone conference with Animal Health Minister Elliott Morley and top advisors in London that night, it was decided that farmers would not have to be warned until the next day.
Jan Kelly, divisional veterinary manager for Cornwall, said: "The telephone conferencing with Elliott Morley was to decide what the process should be in terms of communications, because that was one thing we were heavily criticised for, (last year) for not allowing people to know as soon as possible."
A press release on the news went out at 10pm on Monday. The job of officially notifying the 500 farmers, however, was left to a dozen Defra workers in the Truro office, who began the mammoth task of telephoning those affected at 7am yesterday.
Mrs Kelly added: "It did mean an awful lot of people in the area didn't know what was happening. A lot found out unfortunately from the press and radio this morning."
She said that "the vast majority" of farmers had been informed by late morning yesterday, but admitted that some still did not know.
Mrs Kelly said that it would have been possible to begin telephoning affected farmers on Monday night, but it was decided against this course of action.
"We could have got a team in and rung round last night, but it's a matter of how you pool your resources and in some sense, if it was going to be a hard day today, and it was going to prove positive, they would have needed their sleep and rest."
The fact that the bull had suspect lesions on its tongue and not elsewhere on its body, meant that it was likely not to be infected with foot and mouth, said Mrs Kelly.
"It didn't seem likely to be positive so I must admit we didn't pull out all the stops last night," she added. "I certainly would have done a lot more if I thought the risk was greater."
Colin Breed, South East Cornwall MP and the Lib-Dems' agriculture spokesman, said: "If there's a suspect case then farmers in the 8km range need to be told as soon as possible. If there's one thing we have learnt from last year's foot and mouth crisis, it is that speed is of the essence."
Ian Johnson, spokesman for the South West NFU, said that the incident highlighted the ineffective contingency planning of the Government. "Communications were lamentable in the last outbreak and it doesn't look as if they have done anything worthwhile about it since."
Neil Parish, Westcountry Conservative MEP, and himself a farmer, said: "This is hopefully a false alarm, but what it shows is that the information is not coming out to farmers as it should. When is the Government going to put a proper contingency plan in place?"
The final results of tests on samples taken from the bull are due to be known by the end of the week, so restrictions could be lifted by the weekend.
Sept 25 02
HOW WOULD DEFRA DEAL WITH ANOTHER OUTBREAK?
Western Morning News
09:00 - 25 September 2002
Inadequate communication was blamed by many as one of the main reasons last year's foot and mouth outbreak reached such massive proportions.
Dr Iain Anderson, who led the Lessons To Be Learned Inquiry into the crisis, was just one expert to remark on the need for better dialogue in future.
"The quality of management information in times of crisis is critical," he said in his report. "Ministers and officials realised too late that managing the crisis was not only about securing sufficient numbers of vets...but also about ensuring that other resources were available as well."
On Monday, government vets found that a bull at Higher Redgate Farm, St Cleer, in South East Cornwall, had lesions on its tongue, and as a precaution sealed the farm and ordered that no animal movements take place within five miles.
Yet despite the emphasis on providing better communication, hundreds of farmers were not officially informed about the suspected case until late the next morning.
Initial results, which were negative, were released by the Institute for Animal Health Laboratory at Pirbright, Surrey, yesterday.
But the uncertainty of local planners was reflected in the decision to hastily consult central Government on Monday night, bringing into perspective the provision of contingency plans.
If the case proves positive - which is highly unlikely - the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) would destroy the farm's 38 animals in the breeding unit and contiguously cull out the five neighbouring farms.
Foot patrols were mounted yesterday by Defra workers to see how many animals were at neighbouring farms in the disastrous event of the case proving positive.
If animals are destroyed, the haunting image of last year's burning funeral pyres would not be repeated, with Defra instead using rendering and incineration. To prevent the disease spreading, farmers would have to be quickly told what is expected of them.
Defra would attempt firstly to contact all of the affected farms by telephone and would set up a helpline for advice.
Information would be posted on the department's website and the local National Farmers' Union and media would be approached to help spread the message.
Regardless of any hassle caused by subsequent restrictions, Defra has urged farmers to inform the authorities if they have the slightest suspicion that their animals are harbouring foot and mouth.
Sept 25 02
Date: 25 September 2002
Sir - There may be various reasons for the demise of viable British agriculture, but collective suicide is not one of them (Comment, Sept. 24).
The "food at a price that other countries can effortlessly undercut" is deliberately cost-inflated by up to 30 per cent over EU competitors' by our own government. You can destroy any industry that way, but that was not why shipbuilding and mining died.
The production-cost rises far outstrip the subsidies, which in turn are far smaller than those paid to our EU competitors. That is why we are all marching up a 45 per cent slope and, amazingly, not winning.
From:
Frederick Forsyth, Hertford
Sept 25 02
Date: 25 September 2002
Sir - While 407,000 were marching, one noble 16-year-old soul, known as Rob, worked from 2am to 8.30pm, milking a total of 520 cows twice, in two herds, and calved six cows single-handedly, so that the two herd owners could march in London.
From:
Martin Brown, Maiden Bradley, Wiltshire
Sept 25 02
What will make them listen?
Telegraph
(Filed: 24/09/2002)
Almost more extraordinary than the colossal scale of Sunday's Liberty and Livelihood March has been the Government's reaction to it. Here was a cause about which 407,791 Britons felt strongly enough to travel from every town and county in the land to march for many hours through the streets of the capital.
Yet so far the Government has behaved as if nothing happened, as if nothing really needs changing. All that ministers need do, the official line seems to be, is to explain patiently to the poor, dim-witted marchers that they were duped by the Countryside Alliance. The march was "hijacked" by the pro-hunting lobby, said Alun Michael, the minister for rural affairs. What country people failed to realise was: "Yes, we [the Government] are with you."
This line is so breathtakingly patronising, so patently untrue, that it beggars belief that Mr Michael had the gall to utter it. The protesters marched because they knew damn well that the Government was not with them. They knew that the march had been organised chiefly, though not solely, by the hunting lobby and that, by joining it, they would be registering a protest against the proposed ban. How dare Mr Michael pretend to mistake their message?
The scale of the march and the Government's reaction to it should be seen in their historical context. The civil rights marches led by Martin Luther King in the 1960s never attracted more than 250,000 demonstrators, drawn from a population of 200 million. Yet they rightly persuaded the administration in Washington that America's blacks had grievances that needed addressing urgently (and nobody accused Luther King of "hijacking" civil rights).
In Britain, protests against Margaret Thatcher's poll tax attracted only a fraction of the support of Sunday's march. Yet the Major government listened, and the tax was scrapped. Meanwhile, the IRA would be hard-pushed to muster 4,000 supporters - let alone 400,000. Yet Irish republicans need only whisper a supposed grievance, and the Government immediately does their bidding.
Imagine that more than 400,000 members of ethnic minorities had marched on London, complaining that a proposed new law would victimise them. It is unthinkable that ministers would simply ignore them - and nor should they. When people in such vast numbers demand a hearing, they must be given one.
Who can blame Sunday's marchers if they begin to think that their mistake has been to behave by the book - to register their protest exactly as people are meant to do in a liberal democracy? No marchers were arrested on Sunday, no litter was left behind. Who can blame those who think that, if 407,791 angry but polite voices fall on deaf ears, then nothing will influence this Government short of the threat of disorder?
Sept 24 02
Were you listening, Tony Blair?
Telegraph
By Charles Moore, Editor of the Daily Telegraph
(Filed: 23/09/2002)
Above all, it was the numbers. As soon as we reached our village railway station (yes, it is one of the few that still has one), we joined a crowd.
The special train arranged by the hunt and local farmers was wildly overbooked, and crawled from station to station, hunting horns blowing, until it came to rest in the London suburbs, becalmed by "engineering works".
Exhausted by having our children perched on our knees or having to stand, we began to suspect a Blairite plot to prevent us from reaching the march at all.
When we finally made it, the march to the march began. We, on the allegedly plebbier, and smaller, "Livelihood" route, had to snake over London Bridge, circle round almost to the Tower and thence back towards Westminster.
The crowds were so huge that it took us two hours to reach the start at Blackfriars Bridge. I rang friends on "Liberty", the other route, and they reported even larger queues.
From the official start, it was another hour and a half to the finish. Thanks to the Countryside Alliance's excellent choreography, more sophisticated than on the march four years ago, the rising numbers gave drama to the scene.
Huge screens projected them, and by about 3pm people came running back, shouting "over 300,000", beating last time's record. As we filed past the Cenotaph, in the astonishing pool of respectful silence between the great roar of Whitehall behind and of Parliament Square in front, we could see the figures rising on the screen by about 1,000 a minute.
It felt something to be part of the largest public demonstration in British history.
The reaction of Alun Michael, the rural affairs minister, was to say that he still wasn't sure what the march was about. One can see why that seemed the safest (though also the silliest) thing to say. For, to an extent that surprised me, the march was about his leader.
Among all the sometimes imaginative and witty, sometimes crude and scrawled placards that people carried, the words "Tony Blair" occurred more often than anything apart from "hunting".
It is the Prime Minister's misfortune, of course, that his name is short and rhymes with "hare" and "care", and so lends itself to rural protest slogans. But even if his name had been Milosevic, I suspect it would have been plastered everywhere. More than 400,000 marchers do not buy his act.
I have never known a protest quite like this one, because it managed to be good-humoured and angry at the same time, much angrier than its predecessors. Lots of posters lumped Mr Blair with Robert Mugabe, the only other world leader currently trying to take on white farmers.
Unfair, of course, and yet, if I were Prime Minister, I would worry that I had established a reputation for persecuting the most viscerally British of my fellow countrymen.
The consent of the governed is a very important concept in a parliamentary democracy, more important, in some respects, than a simple parliamentary majority. That consent is now being withheld by huge numbers of the people who normally give it most readily.
Surely Tony Blair never wanted it to be this way. New Labour is supposed not to threaten anyone. Mr Blair's selling point is One Nation Toryism with a faintly Leftish tinge.
Yet the nation he actually controls would show up on the map not as one, but as islands of urban pink in a vast expanse of rural sludge (not, automatically, blue). Like the Sheriff of Nottingham, he can drag outlaws into the city and throw them into prison, but, outside the gates, his writ does not run.
When they won in 1997, Labour's class warriors thought they could carry all before them on their pet issue of hunting - and take it out on farmers into the bargain. They have found it harder than they expected, and yesterday an army of 400,000 grass warriors confronted them.
Mr Blair does not like confrontation, at least not within these shores. His first reaction to his own unpopularity is to disbelieve it, but he is not stupid, and he will have noticed that yesterday was a cosmic version of the famous booing that he got from the Women's Institute before the last election.
His next reaction will be to try to placate it. The fact that we have now had five years of Labour government without the ban on hunting that most of the party's MPs want suggests that he might like a way out if one could be found.
When I saw Mr Blair shortly before he became Prime Minister for the first time, we chatted about many, apparently bigger, things and I said to him as I left that I thought his party's promise to ban hunting would cause no end of trouble.
He seemed very surprised, but said, no doubt mindful of his audience, that, if people took it into their heads to pursue a fox, it really didn't bother him very much.
That is the reasonable view of a person not interested in the subject, but he seems unfortunately also to have thought that because the sport didn't matter, nor did banning it. There he made a mistake about the nature of culture and the nature of freedom.
One's idea of one's own culture is formed by many things that are small in themselves. In British culture, it might be cricket or Marmite or Radio 4 or driving on the left or, as Robin Cook once said, chicken tikka marsala, or any god of small things.
It will be a combination of smells and sights and songs and jokes. You won't spend much time talking about Britishness, but you will recognise its symptoms, and you will mind if they are attacked.
In that still large part of British culture that has any link with rural life, hunting is firmly ingrained, and so is farming. If you are part of that culture, you may not yourself know anything much about either, and you may dislike some of the practices of both, but your prejudice - your cultural DNA - is invincibly on their side.
And while you might very well listen to criticism of hunter or farmer from people who move in their world (rural life is full of such internal conflicts), you will set your face like flint against people who abuse them without knowing about them.
When the Prince of Wales told Mr Blair that the treatment of rural people was even worse than that meted out to black people, he was on to something in his comparison. Hunting and farming people, and their supporters, feel insulted by this Government in the way that black people feel insulted by racism - the horrible sense that you are hated simply for what you are.
That is the mistake about the nature of culture. The mistake about the nature of freedom is to think that an existing freedom must be made to justify itself. It is the other way round. The onus of proof should lie on the people who want to take an existing freedom away.
You may believe that hunting is cruel, but you must prove not only that (something that endless reports and consultations have failed to do): you must also prove the "therefore" that says that disapproval must lead to ban. In this case, it is unproved. Indeed, it is virtually unargued.
Most of the 400,000 marching yesterday were unpolitical people, but it is when unpolitical people feel affronted by politics that the politicians have to start worrying. If I were Mr Blair, trying to lead my nation into a war abroad, I would not be wanting another one at home.
Sept 23 02
Prince Charles tells Blair: 'Farmers are being treated worse than blacks or gays
Sunday Telegraph
By Josie Clarke(Filed: 22/09/2002)
The Prince of Wales has written to Tony Blair to say that he agrees with farmers who believe that they are victimised more than "blacks or gays".
In an impassioned intervention on behalf of the countryside, Prince Charles told the Prime Minister that he agreed with a farmer in Cumbria who told him that "if we, as a group, were black or gay, we would not be victimised or picked upon".
In the letter, which was written earlier this year, the future monarch said that if country folk were "any other minority" the government would make greater efforts to protect them. He went on to blame the Government for "destroying the countryside".
Aides said Prince Charles wrote the letter after meeting Mr Blair. The Prime Minister is not thought to have responded directly.
The disclosure of the intervention will hearten the 300,000 people expected to attend today's Liberty and Livelihood march on London organised by the Countryside Alliance. The protest is aimed at demonstrating opposition to a ban on foxhunting and to defend the rural way of life.
The Prince openly supports hunting, although neither he nor Camilla Parker Bowles, his companion, will attend today's protest. He has, however, given staff at his Highgrove estate and at his Duchy of Cornwall estate leave to attend the march.
A spokeswoman for Prince Charles said: "The Prince may well have written to the Prime Minister about fox hunting." A Downing Street spokesman said: "We never comment on any private correspondence between the Prime Minister and members of the Royal Family. The Government continues to govern for the whole country, urban and rural alike."
Prince Charles has said that he will cease hunting if a ban becomes law, but a friend is reported to have said: "He thinks there is a lack of understanding from the Government about the real issues in the countryside."
Sept 22 02
RURAL ARMY ON THE MARCH
WMN
09:00 - 21 September 2002
Parish Britain is on the move. The Westcountry's farmers, foresters, shopkeepers, innkeepers, grannies, granddads and kids - people from all walks of country life - have booked their places to attend the Liberty and Livelihood March tomorrow.
Up to 400,000 demonstrators are expected to attend the march. It is estimated that up to 60,000 people will be travelling east from the counties of Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, setting off in the grey hours of dawn by bus, train or car. Added to these, many are making a weekend of it, travelling to London today, while thousands of others are preparing to cover for those who go.
The Countryside Alliance reports that 254 coaches have been organised to ferry protesters from the region. They will be joined by the folk who have booked seats on a specially chartered train.
A spokesman for the pressure group said he'd worked out that a solid 44 miles of coaches would be converging on the capital.
The Exmoor National Park area alone is sending 30 bus-loads - all of which are reported to be full.
Sept 21 02
Take to the streets tomorrow
Telegraph
(Filed: 21/09/2002)
Some critics of tomorrow's Liberty and Livelihood March like to say with a crafty look, "Ah, but it's really about hunting", as if this were being concealed from the public and hundreds of thousands of credulous marchers. Of course it is about hunting.
The chief inspiration for the march, as for the one in 1998, is that Labour MPs, with the slightly hesitant connivance of the Government, are trying to ban hunting in all its forms. Those who value the liberty to hunt and the livelihoods related to the sport have combined to resist what they see as an oppressive and ill-informed attack on them.
The results, judging by the previous march, and by the figures of those registering for this one, are astonishing. More people will be on this march than hunt in any one season in the entire country. It cannot be overemphasised (although the BBC will no doubt do everything to play it down) how extraordinary these numbers are. No political party, or political cause, could muster anything like so many foot-soldiers.
Why is this happening on such a scale? Because it is not only about hunting, or not about hunting in any narrow or technical sense. It is also about the issues raised by a hunting ban and by the attitudes behind such legislation which apply to farming and rural jobs and rural services and small businesses and shooting and fishing and rambling and land ownership and housing and tradition and freedom.
Yes, there is a variety of grievances. It is perfectly true, for instance, that the particular problems of farming, which relate to subsidy, are quite different from those of hunting, which is entirely unsubsidised. The march includes, some would say, a ragbag of causes. But it is held together by a remarkable solidarity. The sense of community is something whose lack in modern Britain everyone laments. It will be walking the streets of London proudly tomorrow.
It is quite an achievement of New Labour to produce such a large and determined protest from some of the most law-abiding and least political people in Britain. What this long struggle shows is that Labour is not firmly on the inclusive and modernising course that it proclaims under Tony Blair. The Prime Minister has done a great deal to reassure voters that Labour bears no malice towards Middle Britain, but Middle Britain has only to put on a pair of Wellington boots and the New Labour smile turns into the snarl of the class warrior.
Most Labour MPs still seem to inhabit a fantasy countryside in which rich and brutal farmers deprive "the people" of their land and ride down innocent ramblers with their horses. This is at a time when the salary and perks of each MP amount to £100,000 a year and the average farming income is £7,000. If Labour wants the One Nation party that Mr Blair seems genuinely to seek, it must stretch out to include the 80 per cent of the land mass of that nation which is not urban.
For more than a year now, this newspaper has been running a "Free Country" campaign. Again and again, we have noticed that the test of freedom is never in the general, always in the particular. Almost everyone says, "I believe in free speech", yet far too many try to restrict it on specific issues. Almost everyone agrees that people should be able to pursue their own pleasures, but then restricts those pleasures that he dislikes. Are we really a tolerant society, or is "tolerance" something that we extend only to our own preferences and prejudices? This is a test.
Tomorrow's crowds have plenty of reason for bitterness and exasperation, but we hope and expect that the march will be good-humoured. The people walking in their hundreds of thousands love their country in both senses of that word - the nation and the land. They are the sort of people who, in worse times, have been quite ready to die for it and its liberty. Join them.
Sept 21 02
FARMERS PICKET DEPOTS IN MILK PRICES PROTEST
WMN
SAM MARSDEN
09:00 - 20 September 2002
Angry Westcountry farmers turned out in force last night to protest at milk prices in Britain, the lowest in Europe.
Demonstrators gathered outside the Dairy Crest depots in Totnes and Camelford between around 9pm and 1am and tried to stop lorries carrying milk from entering or leaving.
Although initially the demonstration's instigators had talked about blockading all deliveries and clearing supermarket shelves of milk, in the end the protest was more about alerting people of the farmers' dire plight, with most receiving just 16p a litre for their milk.
Richard Haddock, who is the National Farmers' Union (NFU) livestock representative for the South West, helped organise the pickets.
Speaking before the demonstration, he said he expected a "couple of hundred" farmers to attend.
"We are allowing milk bulk tankers in and out," he said. "And we are asking lorry drivers not to cross the picket."
John Daw, chairman of the NFU in Devon, attended the Totnes picket. He said last night's demonstration was a "warning shot".
"The dairies will have delayed the deliveries until 2 or 3am, after we have gone," he said.
"We just want to bring as much awareness of the farmers' situation as possible. We want the supermarkets and the dairies to see sense, to realise that we really have had enough."
Dairy farmer Darren Freeth, who attended the Totnes demonstration with his father and brother, said it was "sink or swim" for British farmers.
He warned that prolonged and unannounced blockades of milk depots could follow if the price of milk paid to producers was not raised to the European average of 20.6p in line with NFU demands.
"It is time Dairy Crest realised they've had enough of a free ride off us," he said. "And the supermarkets do not realise how much we put in.
"Farming - the skills and the way of life - is passed on from generation to generation. I cannot see the countryside staying the same - and once it's gone, it's gone forever."
In Cornwall, dairy farmer Clive Richards joined the protest outside Dairy Crest's Davidstow creamery.
"We are bringing to people's attention the fact that farmers cannot cope with the prices they are being paid," he said. "We are always expected to do more for less."
A Dairy Crest spokesman said: "We are not in a position to comment on something before it happens."
The major UK supermarkets recently announced they would add 2p a litre to the price shoppers paid for milk.
David Lattimore, managing director of direct milk supplies for Dairy Crest, this week announced the firm would pass this money directly onto farmers. But liquid milk accounts for only a quarter of the milk bought for the company, with the balance made up by cheese and other dairy products.
Therefore, after splitting the 2p increase evenly between all its milk suppliers, Dairy Crest will only pay its farmers an extra 0.77p per litre.
However, Kevin Hawkins, communications director for Safeway, yesterday indicated the big supermarkets also intended to raise the price of mild cheddar cheese so all dairy farmers would benefit.
"Obviously we cannot collude with other supermarkets to raise cheese prices, any more than we could collude to raise milk prices, but I am hopeful that this will happen shortly," he said.
Despite last night's pickets, the large supermarkets did not think shoppers would be confronted with empty shelves today.
An Asda spokesman said: "We do not get our milk from Dairy Crest. We do not anticipate that there will be a disruption to supply, but we are keeping an eye on it."
Sainsbury's spokesman Nikki Martin said: "As with any situation like this, we will monitor events closely and we have contingency plans in place."
A police spokesman said extra officers were specially brought in to the Totnes area to be on hand for the picket.
smarsden@westcountrypublications.co.uk
WMN Opinion - Page 10
Sept 20 02
Angry farmers set their sights on the supermarkets
Telegraph
By Robert Uhlig, Farming Correspondent, and Peter Foster
(Filed: 19/09/2002)
Thousands of dairy farmers will today try to blockade every dairy plant in Britain before going to London on Sunday to protest against the ruthlessness of supermarkets.
Somehow they will find time away from their daily grind to stand up for a situation they regard as no longer sustainable.
For months, milk prices have been plummeting. Most farmers lose two pence on every pint they produce. Yet supermarket milk prices have remained unchanged.
Although the five major supermarket chains pledged last week to increase the price of their milk by a penny a pint, dairy farmers have yet to see any improvement.
They say it is still not enough to prevent many of them being driven out of business.
For the first time, the pickets outside dairy plants today are being supported not only by the Farmers for Action group, but also by the National Farmers' Union and its Welsh and Scottish counterparts.
Richard Haddock, NFU livestock committee deputy chairman, said: "I have never known such unity over an issue. We have the lowest-paid milk producers in Europe and everybody says it is time that stopped."
The blockade of all milk depots will run from 9pm to 1am, with the aim of emptying all supermarket shelves of milk by midday tomorrow.
But dairy farmers are not alone in feeling disgruntled at the lack of Government support for their industry and the supermarkets' stranglehold over prices, highlighted by the NFU last week, which found that of a £37 supermarket basket of typical items - milk, bread, vegetables and meat - the farmer receives only £11.
The Morgan family - all 20 of them - will be marching to protest against the supermarket monopolies, the handling of the foot and mouth crisis and the failure to support and protect British produce against cheap imports.
They will be up early that morning to feed their herd of 500 charolais beef cattle before joining a coach party from the village of Appleton, Oxon, where they farm almost 3,500 acres.
Bernard Russell, a farmer and potato trader from Romford, Essex, will be protesting at the disparity in potato prices, now the lowest in real terms in living memory.
"I wonder how many of those shopping for potatoes are aware of the huge difference in price between what the growers are currently getting and what the consumer pays at the supermarkets," he said.
Growers are paid £44.81 per tonne of standard white potatoes. By the time they have been boxed and put on supermarket shelves, shoppers are charged a price equivalent to £724.25 a tonne. "We know supermarkets have overheads," he said. "We also know they have great control over the farmer. But do they know that farmers also have overheads and are being driven out of business?"
Stephen Curtis, 56, a pig breeder in East Yorkshire with 5,500 sows will be joining the march with his five-year-old twin grandsons, Michael and Alexander, to protest at the pressure that supermarkets put on meat processors to seek the lowest prices from farmers.
The farm gate pork price has collapsed from £1.40 a kilogram five years ago to around 80p a kilogram.
"The supermarkets screw the prices down, so the processors are forced to buy in from abroad, where animal welfare standards are lower," said Mr Curtis. "Supermarkets can still put the 'British Finest' sticker on it because it is processed here."
Some farmers, such as David Rose, an arable farmer from Car Colston, Notts, see a way forward. He has identified that it is the processors - the bakeries and dairies, for example - who take a large share of the retail price, along with supermarkets.
Mr Rose, who runs a farmshop home delivery service, thinks farmers should unite to share machinery and costs.
Sept 19 02
Date: 19 September 2002
Sir - The coming march is not only about hunting: so many livelihoods depend on the countryside. In England there are 14,000 dairy farmers: three quarters are making a trading loss for this financial year.
The milk price in September is a paltry 17p per litre, down from 21p last year, a drop of 19 per cent. How many people would turn out to work if their employers told them to take these wage cuts? On average, dairy farms produce 400,000 litres of milk. Most are run by a couple, regularly working up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, including all bank holidays and Sabbaths, since God, in a terrible oversight, forgot to make the cow a six-day-a-week model.
The British dairy farmer is the most tightly regulated in the world, and also suffers high transport costs. Many people believe that if imports are cheaper, British farmers should pay the consequence. I strongly disagree: the area of Doncaster where I live is very rural, with a myriad small hamlets, each with more than 1,000 years of tales to tell. They are systematically being destroyed. British agriculture also provides jobs to many in manufacturing. The continued slide in farm gate prices will eventually take its toll on urban jobs. The entire supply chain is on the brink of collapse.
Would this happen in France or Ireland? The Government here is indifferent.
From:
Martin Drake, Askern, S Yorks
Sept 19 02
09:00 - 18 September 2002
A junior minister in Margaret Beckett's department publicly apologised for a bungled Westcountry cull that she claimed to know nothing about, it emerged yesterday.
Speaking at the European Parliament's inquiry into the foot and mouth crisis last week, Mrs Beckett twice declined invitations to apologise for the Government's serious mishandling of an animal cull on a farm in Knowstone, Devon, last year.
A group of young limousin bullocks took flight onto neighbouring farms after Ministry of Agriculture marksmen took shots at them.
Despite the national media attention the bungled cull received, Mrs Beckett claimed she was "not familiar with the case".
But the Western Morning News has learned that a minister in Mrs Beckett's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) sent a written apology for the cull to Devon's foot and mouth inquiry.
The letter reads: "Defra very much regrets the conduct of this particular cull."
Although Mrs Beckett was not appointed at Defra until after the Knowstone cull, she had been in charge for six months when the letter was sent.
The bungled cull took place on May 13, 2001, and Mrs Beckett became Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs after Tony Blair's Labour government was re-elected in June, 2001.
Lord Whitty, Food and Farming Minister, sent the letter apologising for the cull on December 20, 2001.
Devon County Council uncovered the evidence that Mrs Beckett appeared not to know what her own ministers were doing.
Council leader Christine Channon said: "It is astonishing that Mrs Beckett could be so unaware of an incident which was broadcast on national television, heavily criticised by the first public inquiry into the epidemic and regretted by one of her senior ministers in an official response on behalf of her Department."
The question from Devon County Council reads: "The inquiry also heard evidence from Knowstone Parish Council that the culling operation at the village was bungled, a herd of cows was shot on the run, and that is took several days to complete the slaughter.
"What steps has the department undertaken to ensure that all future culls are conducted efficiently and with sensitivity?"
The department's reply was: "Defra very much regrets the conduct of this particular cull.
"Cattle handling facilities were limited, and 24 yearling limousins, which were not used to humans, managed to escape. Re-gathering them would have been likely to result in the animals running further away from the farm potentially spreading disease over a wide area.
"The decision was therefore made to cull them using marksmen. Regrettably, the marksman selected was only able to cull six, and only succeeded in dispersing the remaining animals further. An expert stalker eventually completed the task.
"New instructions have been issued nationally to ensure that sufficiently skilled marksmen are selected in future."
Reacting to the revelation, Knowstone Parish Council chairman Bill Norman described Mrs Beckett as "arrogant and uncaring".
"My opinion of the woman is not very high. She appears to have one thing on her mind, and that is to crucify the countryside.
"I am quite sure that she would have known about this or someone would have told her about it.
"Whether she has got a lapse of memory or not, I don't know."
A Defra spokesman said: "Margaret Beckett would like to make clear that she was approached by a Western Morning News reporter in Brussels, but what was not reported was the rest of her comments to the reporter.
"She said, 'I am aware that a great many people and communities suffered a great deal of distress during that time, and that is of course to be regretted all round. In my statement to Parliament, I make that clear'.
"She studied a lot of the documents about foot and mouth, but it is unfair to say she should have total recall of every incident that took place.
"At the time the foot and mouth report was presented, she made it very clear in Parliament that Defra accepts that mistakes were made. She is not uncaring or flippant about that."
Sept 18 02
IT'S YOUR MESS SO YOU CLEAR IT
WMN
SAM MARSDEN
09:00 - 18 September 2002
A westcountry burial pit dug during the foot and mouth crisis is a blot on the landscape and it is the Government's responsibility to clear it up, a council said yesterday.
The Ash Moor burial pit was built in the heart of the Devon countryside at the height of last year's crisis to take hundreds of thousands of animal carcasses. Despite costing over £6 million, it was never used and is still lying empty.
Now the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), formerly MAFF, which constructed the pit and is maintaining it at a cost of £20,000 a day, wants to sell it off.
Devon County Council yesterday considered a Defra proposal to sell the Ash Moor site, located near Petrockstowe, to the council. Defra estimates the land is worth £350,000, although the council disputes this.
Defra proposed that the council should also be responsible for restoring and managing the pit, with the help of a Government grant.
But councillors and officers strongly rejected the suggestion, arguing Defra should resolve the problem itself because MAFF built the pit.
Speaking yesterday at County Hall, Exeter, council deputy chief executive Edward Chorlton said he was "very wary" about taking on the massive restoration project. "Defra have to be responsible for putting what they have done right," he said.
Mr Chorlton said he was worried that the cost of restoring the pit to its natural state could escalate far beyond the grant awarded by the Government.
Defra estimates restoring Ash Moor will cost £1.2 million, but the council fears the final figure could in reality be much higher, leaving council tax payers to shoulder the burden.
Chairing yesterday's meeting of Devon County Council's executive, Coun Brian Greenslade, said: "Anything we do has to represent value for money for the people of Devon. We cannot really take up what Defra are offering at the moment."
Instead, the council wants Defra to restore the pit itself before selling on the site.
Defra has two proposals for returning the site to its natural state. The first would see it restored to its original condition.
Devon members back the second proposal, whereby Ash Moor would be filled in and covered with a mixture of grassland, woodland and wetland.
In a report that went before councillors yesterday, council chief executive Philip Jenkinson said it would be difficult to restore the site to its original state because major changes were made when the pit was dug, including the removal of hedgrows.
"Prior to the acquisition by Defra, the site was recognised as being of nature conservation significance," he added. "On this basis, nature conservation objectives are of paramount importance whichever restoration option is adopted.
"It will also be difficult, in the short term, to restore the Culm grassland, as this depends partly on the mix of soil, and partly upon the grazing regime."
But local campaigners accused the council of abdicating its duty to ensure Ash Moor was restored sensitively.
Ron Dawson, chairman of STAMP (Stop the Ash Moor Pit), said responsibility for the fiasco should be shared between Defra and the council.
"It smacks of pettiness, and I found it very unhelpful," he said. "The mess was made by every party concerned - we were all involved in the hysteria of foot and mouth. I think it is awfully sad that they have deferred a decision until they have all the relevant information.
"I really do think they should be looking at Defra's offer to sell them the pit. It is far better that local control is kept on the land because local knowledge is so much more important."
A Defra spokesman said: "We had hoped that the county council would be able to buy it and turn it into something the community could use.
"There is not much we can do other than offer it for sale to the highest bidder."
Sept 18 02
A home, a job, a future. That was 18 months ago
Telegraph
By Robert Uhlig
(Filed: 18/09/2002)
It was a smelly, unglamorous job, but someone had to do it. For Mick Eadle, a farmer in Oxfordshire, making pigswill provided a comfortable living until the Government banned his business last year and drove him into bankruptcy.
Like thousands of other rural business people, Mr Eadle, 64, plans to join the Liberty and Livelihood March on Sunday. The marchers will be protesting against bureaucracy, short-termism and what they say is a failure by Government to recognise the needs of rural enterprise.
Among their number will be Toni Jones, 70, who said yesterday that red tape and Government indifference had recently forced her to close the Carnarvon Arms, a 22-room hotel at Dulverton, Somerset, that she had owned and managed for 42 years. She will be marching with her husband, daughters and grandchildren.
"We were brought to our knees by foot and mouth. It forced us to sell the hotel to a property company and close the brasserie to villagers," said Mrs Jones.
"We hated doing it, particularly as we have lost the local garage, the village shop, a nursery and a retirement home recently, all of which suffered dreadfully under increasing red tape."
Jim Webster, a beef farmer, will travel from Cumbria to join the march in protest at red tape that he said had knocked a fifth off his already meagre income and forced him to buy animals from dealers 150 miles away.
But of them all, Mr Eadle's experiences are the most dramatic. "Eighteen months ago, I had a fine home, a profitable farm, a good car and some money in the bank," he said yesterday.
"Now I have nothing, my health is in tatters and the council has evicted me from my caravan. If I am lucky I'll get a place in an old people's home. Otherwise, I don't know."
Within a few days of foot and mouth striking last year, pigswill was blamed for spreading the disease from illegally imported meats to a pig farm in Northumberland, and the Government banned its use.
Mr Eadle's business was immediately closed down. There was no redress, no compensation, not even a promise of reprieve for Mr Eadle and his colleagues, even though pigswill is still licensed in other parts of Europe.
"We had invested a lot of money in the most modern machinery and we ran a good operation. But because one man broke the law, the Government is punishing the country," Mr Eadle said.
"It's not right and it shouldn't be allowed to happen. The Government pulled our living out from underneath our feet, but gave us no help with meeting debts that are the result of their actions."
Typical of the problems facing rural business, according to the Countryside Land and Business Association, is the frustration of many landowners and farmers who, prompted by Government exhortations to diversify, apply to convert agricultural buildings to commercial use but find their intentions hampered by planning restrictions.
But the biggest problem faced by rural businesses is the poor telecommunications infrastructure. After finding countless examples of businesses hampered by the slow rollout of rural broadband, the CLA has launched a campaign to persuade the Government and BT to speed up access to internet services.
Dr Charles Trotman, rural economy adviser at the CLA, said: "Rural businesses already struggle with appalling public transport, restrictive planning systems and infrequent delivery services.
"Without faster internet access, many businesses will not be able to compete in a market that depends on speed of communication and the ability to do business online."
Sept 18 02
'Economic disaster' warning over GM crops
Telegraph
By Robert Uhlig, Farming Correspondent
(Filed: 18/09/2002)
Genetically modified crops have been an "economic disaster" in America, costing £8 billion in lost profits and higher subsidies since 1999, according to a report published yesterday.
The study by the Soil Association raises questions over the future of GM crops in Britain, currently undergoing their final round of farm-scale trials before the Government consults on their introduction.
According to the report, called Seeds of Doubt, almost every benefit claimed for GM crops did not stand up to examination. Farmers reported lower yields, continued dependency on chemical sprays and widespread GM contamination of non-GM and organic crops, which in turn damaged exports.
Based on interviews with academics, advisers, farmers and industry analysts in North America, it said that GM crops had delivered few, if any, of the economic benefits promised to farmers.
Growing GM herbicide-resistant soya and insect-resistant maize was found to be less profitable than growing natural varieties because of the higher costs of GM seed and the lower market prices for GM crops.
About £400 million a year has been wasted after almost the entire North American exports of maize and rape to the European Union were lost following the introduction of GM varieties, the report said.
About £6.5 billion had been handed out in farm subsidies over the past three years in America for maize and soya because of low prices caused by loss of trade due to GM crops, the report estimated. Contamination had also cost an estimated £1 billion in lost foreign trade, while one particular product recall left a bill of about £600 million.
Three quarters of the world's GM crops are grown in America and Canada. But following problems with GM soya and maize, more than 200 groups representing farmers and the organic sector in the two countries are calling for a moratorium on the introduction of GM wheat, the next proposed crop.
Peter Melchett, policy director for the Soil Association, said the report should act as a warning to the Government, which will make a decision next year whether to allow GM crops to be grown commercially in Britain.
"With agriculture still suffering a deep economic crisis, the temptation to seize a new technology is great," he said. "Growing GM crops in the UK will undermine the competitiveness of British agriculture."
An EU report leaked earlier this year found that the costs of keeping GM and non-GM crops separate would often be too high to make commercial planting of GM crops economically feasible. On Monday, the National Centre for Food and Agricultural Policy, an American group funded by the biotechnology industry and the American government, painted a different picture of GM crops in America, saying that in 2001, GM crops of soya-bean, maize, cotton, papaya, squash, and oilseed rape produced an extra 1.8 million tons of food and fibre on the same acreage.
The report said GM crops had improved farm income by £973 million and reduced pesticide use by 21,000 tons. A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "If GM crops are approved it can be assumed that farmers will not grow them unless they see some benefit to themselves, and unless there is a market for what they are producing.
"The Government recognises that consideration needs to be given to the terms on which GM crops might co-exist with conventional and organic production; this is another issue that we expect to be considered as part of the GM debate."
Sept 18 02
It's us who are being milked - dairy farmers
Newcastle Journal
By The Journal
Dairy farmers from across the region demonstrated through Northallerton town centre to highlight the 9p a pint they receive for their milk - just a quarter of the average retail price.
During the demonstration, organised by the NFU, milk maids in fancy dress handed out 302 bottles of milk to shoppers in the town to signify the number of jobs lost from the farming industry in Yorkshire and the North-East every month.
Entertainment was provided by a jazz band, a pantomime cow and a wooden cow which the public were invited to "milk".
Durham farmer Brian Hodgson, NFU North Riding & Durham County chairman, said: "We lost 3,624 jobs from the farming industry in Yorkshire and the North-East last year which is totally unacceptable. If the public wants quality food they can trust, farmers in this country must be given a fair share of the retail price so they can make a profit.
"Dairy farmers are losing a fortune as they are receiving only 9p for every pint of milk they sell, whereas consumers are paying an average of 36p for a pint of milk - that's a 300pc mark-up between the farmgate price and the retail price. Someone, somewhere is making a considerable profit on milk, so why should farmers be making a loss?
"If the current milk price farmers are receiving continues, it will force more producers out of the industry."
Sept 17 02
Thousands rally to the march
icWales
Sheila Coleman Farming Editor Sheila.Coleman@Wme.Co.Uk, The Western Mail
THE Welsh farming community has thrown its weight behind next weekend's countryside march in London.
At least 15,000 people from Wales are expected to take part in the Countryside Alliance organised Liberty and Livelihood march on Sunday.
Mark Hinge, the alliance's political director for Wales, said, "This show of strength from Wales sends out a clear and an advance message that the countryside must be listened and treated with tolerance and respect."
He continued, "I have been amazed at the huge take-up on coaches, this together with requests on how the young, old, disabled and less abled can make their own contribution means that clearly we will be looking at a huge turnout from Wales."
Organisers say they are delighted with the response - particularly over the past week - from the rural community.
"It demonstrates that more and more people, both from town and country, are ready to march to express their strong desire to ensure the survival of rural Britain. This march will be the largest peacetime demonstration in British history and everyone is eager to play a part on a historic day," said march director James Stanford.
While the catalyst for the march has been the threat to ban hunting with dogs, for many of the marchers it is the wider issues affecting rural life which are inspiring them to travel to London.
Even those who cannot be at the march in person - such as staff at the World Sheepdog Championships at Bala, which conclude on Sunday - can sign a "Marching in Spirit" register to show their support.
National Farmers Union Cymru spokesman Keith Jones said NFU leaders would use the march to fully promote the "many problems facing farmers".
"A large number of NFU Cymru members have intimated that they intend to be present and they have been busy chartering buses and getting seats on them from every corner of Wales.
Sept 17 02
REGION 'MUST BE MORE PRODUCTIVE'
WMN
09:00 - 17 September 2002
The South West must become more productive and competitive, according to Sir Michael Lickiss, chairman of the South West Regional Development Agency.
At yesterday's presentation of the agency's annual report, he also said the area had skill shortages which hampered efforts to attract investment.
The report says that last year the agency spent almost £110 million. It gives grants for regeneration work and lobbies government on behalf of regional businesses and communities.
Sir Michael said many challenges lay ahead, but there were bright signs for the future, including setting up a manufacturing centre of excellence, more innovation centres and building more "cutting-edge" office and industrial space.
"The South West must become more productive and competitive," he said. "Innovation and quality do not yet drive all parts of the economy or all businesses.
"Urban and rural areas should work more closely together. Skills shortages affect our ability to attract new investment, while some parts of the South West still suffer considerable disadvantages."
RDA chief executive Geoffrey Wilkinson said it had played an important part in the recovery from foot and mouth and spent £14 million on a business recovery fund.
"What we fund is only a small part of what we can achieve," he said. "It is equally important that we can lobby effectively with government and partners here in the South West and, by exercising strategic leadership, sow the seeds of lasting success and growing productivity."
Sept 17 02
SAM MARSDEN
09:00 - 17 September 2002
Westcountry farming leaders are split over a protest planned for this week that aims to drain the region's supermarkets of milk.
Angry dairy farmers intend to blockade depots across Britain on Thursday night to draw attention to the low prices they receive for their product.
Devon farmer Richard Haddock, who led the fuel protests in 2000, is spearheading the milk protest.
He said the protesters would start by blockading depots in Scotland, and would move down to the South West.
"We do not want to interfere with the public, but this was the only way of getting a clear message through," he said. "No individual is leading it, and there is no spokesman. It is just that farmers have had enough."
The organisers of the milk blockade, a group of six farmers and an anonymous high-ranking National Farmers' Union official, are known as the "Secret Seven". They say many of Britain's shops will run out of milk by lunchtime on Friday.
Mr Haddock, who farms 800 acres in Kingswear, is not himself a dairy farmer. But he said he supported the NFU in its negotiations for a better milk price.
"The NFU has come up with the figure of 20.6p per litre, which is the European average," he said.
"British dairy farmers are the lowest-paid in the EU - they receive only between 13.5 and 16p a litre for their milk. Italian farmers get 29p a litre."
But Steve Bucknell, chair of the Cornish branch of the NFU and a beef farmer near Newquay, said the blockades were not the best way for dairy farmers to improve their lot. "The NFU is talking constructively with these groups, and therefore I cannot condone farmers who take direct action," he said.
John Daw, chairman of the NFU in Devon, said he did not have a better idea as to how farmers could make their point.
"We have tried to reason with people. At the end of the day, we are trying to get some public awareness of this stupid position we are in," he said. "It just shows our frustration at the retailers' total power."
Kevin Hawkins, communications director for Safeway and a former member of the MAFF taskforce on milk, said that if the blockades lasted a day, he expected only "a bit of temporary disruption".
"Obviously, one would not be complacent, and one would take precautionary steps. But there are much more important underlying issues we have to sort out.
"The supermarkets recently put their prices up by the equivalent of 2p a litre. But farmers still obviously think that is not enough.
"It would also appear that they expected the dairies to pass the price increase on to them more quickly. I understand it is taking the dairies some time to work out how much the increase should be for cheese and so on.
"We want as much of the 2p as possible to go through to the farmers.
"Let's sit round a table with the dairies, the farmers, the co-operatives and the big retailers, and see if we can work out a better future for this industry."
Sept 17 02
COUNCIL TO CONSIDER FUTURE OF BURIAL PIT
Western Morning News
09:00 - 17 September 2002
The future of the Ash Moor burial pit, which was created in Devon to take the carcasses of millions of slaughtered animals from the foot and mouth crisis but was never used, will be considered by Devon County Council today.
The council's executive meets to examine options put forward by the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for the future of the pit, which even in its unused state costs £20,000 a week to run.
The three options put forward by Defra are that the department should restore the site to its original condition and sell it to the council or another body, the department should carry out limited restoration and sell the site to the council, or the department should transfer the site to the council together with a suitable sum of money for restoration and future management.
One of the recommendations being put to the county council executive is that the council should tell Defra that it would not want the responsibility for the site.
The executive is being recommended to tell Defra that it would support restoration for nature conservation rather than to return the site to its original condition.
Sept 17 02
JASON GROVES
09:00 - 17 September 2002
The devolution debate is set to take a fresh twist today with the launch of a new political party dedicated to the establishment of an English parliament.
The English Democrats Party, which will be launched in London today, aims to take advantage of the growing interest in the idea of "Englishness" and the increased use of the flag of St George to build support for a dedicated parliament along the lines of the Scottish Parliament.
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Mr Tilbrook said the party was receiving support from all parts of the political spectrum.
He added: "The party has been formed by people of widely varying backgrounds from all parts of England.
"They belong to a great and ever-growing body of people who are fed up and frustrated by the failure of political parties to respond to their concerns. These are not extremists but ordinary people with legitimate worries about what is happening to their society and their country.
"There is widespread resentment that England is not recognised as being a country; its people feel sidelined and disenfranchised.
"We are faced with a situation where we either have an English Parliament or we have England broken up into regions and it is clear that none of the existing parties are going to do anything about it."
Mr Tilbrook said the party was also keen to generate greater local accountability and would give areas like Cornwall "as much autonomy as there is a demand for."
The creation of the English Democrats is the latest side effect of the Government's devolution agenda, which has seen a marked increase in the use of St George's flag.
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Sept 17 02
Farmers unite in milk protest
Times
by Valerie Elliott
SUPPLIES of milk could be disrupted next weekend after a mass protest by farmers outside the 150 milk distribution depots.
The action is planned for Thursday night and, for the first time, farmers throughout the country have united to demand higher prices for milk. They are asking for at least 10.5p a pint instead of the 7p to 9p they are paid, the lowest in Europe. Farmers receive more than 14p a pint in Italy, over 12p in Germany, and 11p in France. Jim Walker, president of the Scottish National Farmers' Union, was the first to name September 19 as a day of protest. The move is now being supported unofficially by the National Farmers' Union, the Farmers' Union of Wales and the militant organisation, Farmers For Action.
They are also demanding higher prices for milk that is used in cheese and other dairy products.
Sept 16 02
'NOTHING DONE' ABOUT ANIMAL TRANSPORT RULE
Western Morning News
SAM MARSDEN
09:00 - 16 September 2002
Westcountry farmers could have to wait until March next year before restrictions on the transportation of livestock are lifted.
The Western Morning News has learned that the Government plans to wait until 2003 before starting its study of whether the unpopular 20-day standstill rule limiting animal movements can be lifted.
Robert Sturdy, Conservative MEP for the Eastern Region and instigator of the European inquiry into foot and mouth disease, visited Exeter at the weekend to meet Devon farmers.
He had just returned to Britain from Brussels, where he quizzed Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, about when the Government intended to lift the 20-day rule.
"Margaret Beckett consistently quoted the Anderson Report throughout her speech in Brussels," he said.
"Anderson was quite critical of the 20-day rule, and said the Government must do a full review of its financial effects and what problems it has caused for the industry.
"To my utter surprise, she said she had done nothing about it. She said it was only two-and-a-half months since the Anderson report came out, and that they were putting the tender out for people to do an impact assessment on the 20-day rule.
"They are looking at doing the study in the New Year.
"I said I thought this was absolutely ridiculous. This means the rule will not be lifted until February or March at the earliest."
After last year's foot and mouth crisis, the Government brought in a ban on any animal being moved from a farm for 20 days after new sheep and cattle were introduced.
From September 6, the rules were loosened, but farmers are still pressing for them to be lifted altogether - or at least for the holding period to be cut to six days.
John Daw, chairman of the National Farmers' Union in Devon, said the Government's delay did not surprise him.
"With the 20-day rule, livestock markets are going to disappear," he said. "But quite honestly, if the 20-day rule continues for the next two months, it's not going to make a big difference to farmers.
"The real exchange of animals from the uplands to the lowlands takes place between now and November 1.
"Everything is over by then, and then it doesn't matter for the next three months.
"But of course, as you get to the beginning of March, the markets will start running again."
Mr Sturdy also asked Mrs Beckett about what the Government intended to do about meat imports from countries where foot and mouth disease was rife.
"I made it plain that this is not a trade issue, but it seems to me rather ridiculous to import meat from places like Central America where foot and mouth is endemic, when there are plenty of disease-free sources like Australia and New Zealand," he said.
"Her answer was that it was a very difficult issue, and that they would consider it. In other words, they will do nothing."
Sept 16 02
French Welcome Changes in BSE Rules
meatnews.com
Confidiration Paysanne says selective slaughter policy is sufficient to
protect public health.
French farmers have welcomed the Government moves to change the slaughter
regulations in the event of a case of BSE.
The French agriculture minister this week Hervi Gaymard said the controls
will be changed to a selective slaughter of animals - cohorts and the
descendants of animals infected with BSE born one year either side of the
infected animal - rather than a whole herd slaughter policy.
The farmers' union Confidiration Paysanne, which has been campaigning for a
change in the rules for a long time said the whole herd slaughter policy did
not do anything more to guarantee the safety of the meat, it was destructive
for the farmers and a waste of public money.
The selective slaughter, the union said, is sufficient for the protection of
the public's health, particularly since the use of meat and bone meal feed
has been banned and with the re4gulations over the removal of specified risk
material and with the new rapid detection tests on carcases.
The union, however, has continued to call for research to be financed to
find the causes of BSE.
Sept 16 02
Hunting protest masks deeper divisions
Telegraph
By Robert Uhlig, Farming Correspondent
(Filed: 16/09/2002)
The countryside crisis is coming to town. Two years in the planning and heralded by an army of slogans leaping from hedgerows, fields and the rear windows of countless four-wheel drives, the Liberty and Livelihood March will converge on Whitehall next Sunday.
But while the protest against a proposed ban on hunting with hounds is the central cause that has pulled in supporters from as far afield as America and Thailand, for many of the marchers hunting is little more than a side issue.
With more than 300,000 expected, the Countryside Alliance concedes that most participants, although sympathetic to the pro-hunters, will be protesting about more fundamental threats to the countryside: the crisis in agriculture, the erosion of rural public services, the squeeze on local economies.
Their common target is a Government they believe to be interested only in urban voters and issues, one which they believe is using the hunting issue to sideline more pressing countryside concerns.
Among them will be thousands of farmers, teachers, business people, auctioneers, shopkeepers, doctors, hoteliers, restaurateurs, school leavers and young families, most with little more than a passing interest in hunting, but all affected by a steadily worsening economic and social crisis from which they believe the Government has abdicated responsibility.
The Countryside Agency has made apparent the growing shortage of affordable rural housing, the inadequate public transport in remote areas, the disappearing rural post offices, shops, doctors' surgeries and schools, and the steady decline in farming incomes, but ministers appear unwilling to tackle many of the problems.
For many marchers, the foot and mouth crisis, which cancelled the march planned for last year, was the turning point. They believe that the Government's failure to tackle the disease at its onset showed its ignorance of farming practices and rural ways.
Citing the closure of the countryside as a symptom of the Government's misunderstanding of the epidemic's £5 billion impact on rural tourism, they suspect that Tony Blair's belated intervention was triggered more by concerns that the crisis would overshadow Labour's hopes for the general election than by an understanding of the effects of the epidemic on farming and rural businesses.
Almost a year since the last of 2,030 outbreaks of foot and mouth was recorded, little appears to have been done to address the most likely cause of the epidemic. Only two sniffer dogs and a poster campaign have been employed to stem the illegal meat imports still flooding into the country.
Livestock farmers are still under restrictions, forced to confine sheep, cattle and pigs on their land for three weeks after any animal movement, a Government restraint that, although a sensible bio-security measure, makes it harder for farmers to rebuild their livelihoods.
Others, such as the grassroots foot and mouth activist Janet Bayley from Cirencester in Gloucestershire, are concerned that the mistakes of the crisis have still not been learnt despite two official inquiries, a policy commission on farming and