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Feb 23 ~ After yesterday's news that all 12 000 cattle in the FMD infected area of Matsilje in Botswana would be killed we are surprised

to read today that: "The Botswana government has donated 540 000 doses of vaccines worth about US$550 000 to Zimbabwe's Department of Veterinary Services for the eradication of the foot-and-mouth disease. The director of the Department of Veterinary Services of Zimbabwe, Dr Stuart Hargreaves said the bulk of the trivalent vaccines would be used to vaccinate cattle along the Botswana-Zimbabwe border as the two neighbouring states stepped up joint efforts to eradicate the disease which kills hundreds of cattle annually."
What is going on there? Is there sanity at work after all in this bid for joint action between the two countries? Or, fearing for the loss of its FMD free zone without vaccination status, now suspended owing to the recent appearence of the disease, is Botswana expecting Zimbabwe alone to vaccinate? ( Any information about this would be gratefully received.)

Feb 22 ~ Lady Apsley writes:"We would be very grateful if everyone could bear to come to London

for the day, or if you are already in London, give up a couple of hours and lend support to the Petition by gathering at the entrance to St Stephens Gate by NO LATER than 2pm"....see letter about the Feb 28th petition presentation with press presence and full ceremony

Feb 22 ~ All 12 000 cattle in the FMD infected area of Matsilje in Botswana will be killed and destroyed this week. It all sounds horribly familiar, illogical and mediaeval.

According to the news report in in Botswana News online: "North East District Councillors have expressed shock and dismay at the government's decision to kill and destroy all cattle in the Matsiloje extension area which is affected by foot and mouth disease. The councillors said killing cattle on the Botswana side without a corresponding action by neighbouring Zimbabwe will not achieve much as the disease is bound to recur." We read with horror.." Dr Moetapele Letshwenyo of the Department of Animal Health and Production said it was necessary to kill all the inffected cattle to eradicate the disease. He said foot-and-mouth disease is incurable. Therefore vaccinating the animals is merely postponing the problem, adding that the disease can lie dormant inside a healthy animal for three years." But we realise with dismay that the UK can hardly advise anyone anymore. Since the British experts on the disease who know that foot and mouth can be eradicated with vaccination were ruthlessly sidelined, we have, quite rightly, lost all credibility.

Feb 22 ~"Right from the beginning, when the Government was appallingly slow to act, the handling of foot-and-mouth was riddled with ineptitude. The issues are sufficiently important for the country... to want to see those involved called to account.

Instead, the hapless Nick Brown has now been shuffled out of Agriculture to become Minister for Work and Margaret Beckett has been landed with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. (That role may not stop her being deputed to appear on the Today programme to deal with the Mittal affair. Mr Blair is far too superior a being to condescend to answer nasty questions, but when the demands become too shrill to ignore, it is usually poor Mrs Beckett who is dragooned into service.) Tony Blair seems to think that the public should be content to receive shinily spun versions of events and does not need to be concerned with the facts. He may see himself as a benevolent paternalist, expecting the public to trust him and let him get on with putting the world to rights. In which case, he would have had a shock on Sunday morning when he saw the opinion poll finding that 65 per cent of Labour voters think that Mr Blair is prone to "give special help to people and companies that donate large sums to the Labour Party". (Patience Wheatcroft, writing in The Times. See democracy watch today)

Feb 22 ~" the Government's mulish resistance to a full inquiry into the circumstances of the foot-and-mouth outbreak smacks of arrogance.

The epidemic revealed weaknesses not only in farming practice but in government crisis management and Whitehall co-ordination. The failure to hold a full public inquiry will only reinforce perceptions that the Government is congenitally shy of scrutiny, reduce the chance of lessons being learnt which will avert future maladministration and further alienate rural voters who feel their concerns are marginalised. If the Government cannot find time for an inquiry but nevertheless makes time in this Parliament for a bill to ban hunting with hounds then many country voters will conclude that its priorities are driven more by political convenience than the national interest. " See best press - Times Feb 20

Feb 22 ~ Ananova tells us this morning of a scheme in Cumbria and the north west of England where farmers, "particularly smaller ones", are being invited to collaborate

to become "more of a force in the market and save money". The Co-operative Group ( the Co-op supermarket is part of this) is giving £250,000 over the next 12 months to the venture through Co-operative Action.
( We tried to visualise Farmer Giles of Ham, rather leaner than of old but still puffing meditatively on his pipe and with his sheepdog at his heels : "Ar," he is saying, "I reckon it'll be for mutual benefit on account of us benchmarking, an' setting up joint ventures. Us'll be developing new added-value markets.")

Feb 22 ~ The poor old Ministry has now been blamed for an extraordinary fraud perpetrated by a Devon farmer who successfully claimed £131,000 of subsidies for imaginary land located in Greenland

the north Atlantic and the North Sea. The government has now given up trying to retrieve the money lost. See today's Independent

Feb 21 ~" IN my darker moments," writes Boris Johnson in the Telegraph today,"I think the Tories should campaign for the abolition of the £109 BBC licence fee.

It is an anachronistic impost, which falls most heavily on the poorest. Not only does it allow the corporation to compete unfairly with unsubsidised businesses; but the constant injection of government funding bloats and enfeebles the organisation, to the point where it now resembles a great fat man, so paunchy that he cannot see his own toes. And you certainly don't find the modern BBC doing anything so strenuous as chasing a story, not when that might be embarrassing to its Whitehall paymasters. Look at these indolent subsidy junkies. They have 10,000 journalists. They have 32.5 billion of taxpayers' money. They have expense accounts and telephones, and yet when a fantastic story lands in their lap, like the Mittal affair, they seem incapable of bringing a single new fact into the public domain. When you watch or listen to BBC accounts of the scandal, everything is related as if it were some distant row, conducted in the newspapers. Everything is assessed in terms of how much "damage" the latest disclosure will do the Government - normally, in the view of the reporter, not very much. It never seems to occur to him or her to get out of the studio, swab off the make-up, and find out what on earth is going on. "

Feb 21 ~" few of the main players in this crisis emerge with much credit. The National Farmers' Union, now so keen to criticise ministers, went along with the policy of mass culling "

writes Peter Hetherington on today's Guardian, "demanding (and getting) more and more compensation - while vetoing one plan for a trial vaccination in Cumbria at the height of the crisis after agreement was apparently reached at a meeting between food and farming leaders and the prime minister last April at Chequers." (warmwell note: the truth of this is yet to emerge. While the NFU seems to have colluded in the decision not to vaccinate, the farmers on the ground were not even asked)"The Conservative opposition began the rundown of Maff, which appeared to be caught unawares. And the food industry, whose juggernauts cause so much congestion on our roads, has done nothing to curb the movement of sheep around the country - identified by the RSPCA this week as a key factor in spreading the disease. The society warns of a "ticking time-bomb" with the risk of a new outbreak unless action is taken to "limit the distance or frequency of journeys during an animal's lifetime". In spite of government hostility to an open inquiry, questions still need to be asked in public ..."(see whole article)

Feb 21 ~ Interesting contribution yesterday to the Guardian's discussion on "what have we learned" from an emailer who humorously calls himself "sodbuster"

David Shannon's comments are very important. He's referring to the Imperial college team headed by Prof Roy Anderson, whose flawed epidemiological advice steered govt policy on FMD. It is hard to understand why the government and MAFF/DEFRA persisted with their dogmatic implementation of the Anderson "inspired" contiguous cull policy, especially when it has been so comprehensively rubbished by some of the world's leading experts on FMD. Including Dr Alex Donaldson and Dr Paul Kitching, of IAH Pirbright Lab, and Prof Fred Brown of the USDA. (...read more)

Feb 20 ~"Investigators watch farmers in their fields secretly to collect evidence of the illegal planting of Monsanto's genetically altered cotton, rape, maize and soya bean crops.

Scott Good, a soya bean farmer in Burlington County, New Jersey, recalled the day that Monsanto inspectors swooped on his farm. "They showed up at my door at 6 o'clock in the morning," he said. "They flipped a badge out. It wasn't polite what they were saying. They acted like the FBI. I was scared..."
Farmers who use Monsanto crops to produce seeds for planting have been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for patent infringement, and some face bankruptcy. Dozens more are being taken to court and hundreds of others have been threatened with court action. They are charged with breaking patents and copyrights, violation of intellectual property rights and "seed piracy". The farmers claim that they are doing what farmers have done for thousands of years, keeping back seeds for planting from their own crops. ." Read more about the Monsanto nightmare in the Times today.

Feb 20 ~" Of course these new sciences and technologies must be tested rigorously, and the global approach to environmental protection typified by the Kyoto Agreement pursued...."

says Lord Haskins, embracing GM technology, in his BBC Wales lecture One can't help but imagine this undoubtedly kindly man on the deck of the Titanic, attempting to reassure the anxious crowds with similar confidence: "Of course this new technology will have been tested rigorously and the polar approach to hull protection, the necessity for which is typified by these approaching icefloes ..."

Feb 20 ~ In utter exasperation, Astrid writes to Mrs Beckett:

Dear Mrs Beckett, Yes, it has been a small triumph (as you describe your handling of the foot and mouth crisis). A triumph of malign and uncaring government over good and honourable citizens. I do indeed find your view that it was a triumph offensive, and would suggest that in fact you are not at all sorry about this. And Yes, your department did let everyone down.
Without respect,
Ms Astrid Goddard

Feb 20 ~ Requests for tickets for Lessons Learned Inquiry meetings should be sent to:

Samantha Dooley at COI Conference Services, Rm 115, Hercules Road, London SE1 7DU (tel: 020 7261 8400/8385, fax: 020 7261 8588 or e-mail: conferences@coi.gsi.gov.uk

Feb 20 ~ Peter Ainsworth MP, the Shadow Defra Minister, has put into operation a new website about Rural Matters.

The article about Defra - in spite of its (in our opinion) muddled thinking about BSE - is something that many visitors to this site may like to read. The website is important because any emails sent go straight to Laura Chisholm in research who then distills the info to feed into various policy groups and the frontbench team to help shape policy. Farmers and rural business people can offer advice to the Conservative Party - and it should have a real impact on policy development.

Feb 20 ~ Jane from Farmtalking.org says, "I see the Evening Chronicle are still publishing incorrect slaughter figures. Even DEFRA have admitted to killing over 10 million animals!

Why the Chronicle continues to say it's under 4 million, when they come from the worst hit County, is quite beyond me! Perhaps their reporters are just 'lazy'! If this whole tragic business wasn't so serious, I guess their incompetance would be funny, but as it is, I find myself just a touch 'irritated' by it!"
Well yes. The journalists do seem to be merely copying from other sources these days. It is significant though that they can't even be bothered to find out that DEFRA has admitted to the higher figure, as Jane says.

Feb 19 ~ On this most inglorious anniversary it is perhaps worth saying that the last twelve months have brought out the very best in the best of people - and also the worst in the worst.

We are saddened to see the hypocrisy of some of those who moved heaven and earth to include their animals in the cull simply in order to make money - some of whom are weeping crocodile tears today. Far more though, we are heartened to see the continuing humour and determination of those who want to see an end to the lying and the covering -up and who want to move forward into a future where there is more humanity and more reason for trust in common sense and genuine knowledge. Dr Shannon's words today will have cheered those people considerably..

Feb 19 ~ The NSPCC is the latest in a long line of NGOs to fall under the suspicion that money rather than any concern for others is its primary aim. (See democwatch today)

The secondary problem about this sort of Red Queen dash after money is that the "charities" are very reluctant to speak out against the government for fear of losing favour and funding. However good the people on the ground ( such as the many good-hearted RSPCA field officers who tried so hard to help during the worst of the FMD crisis) there can be no real progress against cruelty when the hierarchy has been seduced by the lure of power and money. Rather like the government itself which is so reluctant to have its lid lifted in any Public Inquiry, there is a can of worms here.

Feb 19 ~ " We don't actually KNOW but I suspect that FMD got a special deal (for a change) and Tony Blair maybe got 60% funding from the EU to cull vast numbers of sheep.

In many cases the cattle (on contiguous farms) were not culled and they survived, as would the sheep if they had been left alone. This policy will save a fortune in future subsidy payments especially coupled with schemes not to re-stock to past levels. In other words, to some extent, the cull was self-financing," writes David in another of his, always excellent, letters to the FMD forum.

Feb 19 ~ Thanks to Dot for this curious piece of palindromic information that she found on the internet about tomorrow

"Thought perhaps you might be interested to know that a mathematical, palindromic rarity..... 8.02 pm on February 20th this year will be an historic moment in time. It will not be marked by the chiming of any clocks or the ringing of bells, but at that precise time, on that specific date, something will happen which has not occurred for 1,001 years and will NEVER happen again. As the clock ticks over from 8.01pm on Wednesday, February 20, time will, for sixty seconds only, read in perfect symmetry 2002, 2002, 2002, or to be more precise - 20:02, 20/02, 2002. The last occasion that time read in such a symmetrical pattern was long before the days of the digital watch and the 24-hour clock - at 10.01am on January 10,1001. And because the clock only goes up to 23.59, it is something that will NEVER happen again. Now not a lot of people know that! " Elaine adds, "So watch out for nasty viruses sparked off by that very date phenomena ! 20.02 pm 20.02.2002"

Feb 19 ~ " The Peak District National Park is going to start charging people in cars to visit the area.

A charge of £3.00 per car will be made each and every Sunday and all Bank Holiday Mondays - starting next year. Our wonderful government has also agreed to give the Peak District £750,000 in order to set up this 'little earner' - for the erection of toll booths. At a time when all small businesses in rural areas are fighting for their lives - some lunatic comes up with this idea - which will 'catch on' with other national parks throughtout the country. It is pretty obvious to me that after culling farmers of their incomes, small rural businesses are next," writes Elaine.

Feb 18 ~ FOOT AND MOUTH MEMORIAL SERVICE WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 20th TOWN HALL SKIPTON.6pm.

The service is to register sadness at the events of the last year and pray for the future. Prayers hymns and readings will be those which are to be used as part of a protest against the culling policy in London on Sunday February 24th. It is a public event organised by Jean Dixon who started the Skipton Petition"Stop The Cull" and is intended for anyone who has been affected by the culling policy in any way. It will be a child friendly event and pets will be welcome. Floral tributes will also be welcome but there will be a collection for ARC Aaddington Fund Reg. Charity 209961. If the weather permits the event will be lit by candles otherwise please bring a torch. Service sheets will be available.Please arrive early to help organisation. Contact 07950 728196

Feb 18 ~ TB the new plague.

Didi writes, "We have had three farms test positive to TB within a five mile radius just last week - all dairy farms. I was talking to a journalist from the Western Morning News, last Friday: 1000 farms have had movement orders put on them while they wait for TB testing to be done. The journalist phoned Elliot Morley on Thursday and he said "We will have all the testing sorted out and the movement restrictions lifted in a few weeks." I think not my little warthog of a man.... Another classic from Morley, who by this statement has yet again shown his total ignorance of agriculture and the practicalities of carrying out 1000's of TB tests! If you farm "up north" do not buy in cattle from North Cornwall or the Holsworthy area of Devon. A few years ago Holsworthy Cattle Market was closed for six months while MAFF tried to control TB in the area."

Feb 18 ~ The Royal Society of Edinburgh has sent us more details about their visit to the Borders on Feb 26th

"The Newcastleton meeting starts at 3.15 and goes on till 5.45. ... we then go on to Newtown St Boswells for the meeting in the Council Chamber beginning at 7.30.
These arrangements have been widely advertised throughout the Borders- eight local papers are taking our notice and all plus local radio have been approached by RSE press officer. Details are going on the web-site. .. Transport will be provided from Edinburgh back to Edinburgh-details tomorrow

Feb 18 ~ "Metric martyrs" to learn their fate (See latest news)

LONDON (Reuters) - "Five so-called "metric martyrs" will find out today if they have won their legal battle to sell goods in pounds and ounces. ....... Lord Justices John Laws and Peter Crane will give their decision at the High Court on Monday following a test case hearing last November aimed at saving shopkeepers from going metric. The five are backed by high profile figures including former Conservative cabinet minister Lord Tebbit, singer Elaine Paige and actor Edward Fox. At the November hearing, the five's lawyer Michael Shrimpton told the judges: "This is a test case of constitutional importance." The five at the centre of the case are Steven Thoburn, John Dove, Julian Harman, Colin Hunt and Peter Collins, who have been prosecuted for selling things like bananas, mackerel, Brussels sprouts and pumpkins by the pound rather than the kilo. The courts that convicted them took the view that the five were under a duty to use metric measures in line with European regulations. However, the five claim that the 1985 Weights and Measures Act entitles them to stick to pounds and ounces."

Feb 18 ~ An email received this morning reflects the misery felt by many, many people that what is felt to be"the disgusting practice of live animal exports" is to be quietly resumed...

"The fact that this government can waste so much time endeavouring to ban hunting with hounds, while it has happily permitted the recommencement of the export of live animals to the EU for meat fills me with despair. In my innocence, I really thought that the live exports were finished for good, but what do the feelings of a few sheep matter in the face of all that lovely money? Once again big business triumphs," writes Margaret S. (See yesterday's Independent)

Feb 17 ~ "Whitehall is at war" writes Brian Brady, Jason Allardyce and Murdo MacLeod in Today's Scotsman on Sunday under the headline Blair flies back to storm of sleaze

..." the resignation of spin doctors Jo Moore and Martin Sixsmith threatening to plunge Blair's government and the civil service into full-scale war. The fallout from a cash-for-favours row, in which it is alleged the PM influenced a Romanian business deal on behalf of Lakshmi Mittal, an Indian billionaire and Labour donor, becomes more dangerous by the day. And now Scotland on Sunday has uncovered further evidence of Labour's cosy relations with business with the revelation that vaccines tycoon Paul Drayson, who has won multi-million pound government contracts, donated £50,000 to the party. ....... Today Blair faces renewed condemnation over the influence wielded on his government by both big business donors and his army of spin doctors . ...... There is a growing impression that his administration is now embedded in just the sort of sleazy mire that, when in opposition, Blair accused the Conservative government of wallowing in. ... the issue which Blair will have to grasp , is the power wielded by the unelected special advisers at the front line of New Labour's policy machine and its attempts to manage the news agenda. Veteran Labour MP Gwyneth Dunwoody believes Blair's own high command must bear a large share of the blame for the explosive events that rocked the government in his absence. "The reality is that I think Number 10 has got to rethink its attitude both to civil servants and the way that there appears to be a group of people operating out of Number 10 who are neither elected nor civil servants," said the chairman of the Commons transport committee. "On the whole, there is not a lot of point in having a civil service if you are immediately going to upend everything they do."

Feb 17 ~ These are the people who regulate our lives, try to evade accountability and impose on others the Official Secrets Act. What would have happened if Brigadier Birtwhistle had not elbowed his way into the secret meeting on March 22nd 2001?

An extract from Today's Sunday Telegraph: Brigadier Birwhistle "arrived in Carlisle the day before Tony Blair was due for a meeting - arranged in secret - with farmers' leaders to discuss the escalating crisis. Brig Birtwhisle, waving aside the lack of a formal invitation, not only attended the emergency summit in an upstairs room of a Carlisle pub but - without Ministry of Defence permission - delivered to the Prime Minister his own plan to clear a backlog of 150,000 dead animals and carry out a preventative cull. Frustration was breeding anger. Brig Birtwhistle believes that Britain came close to serious civil unrest last March - unrest that made itself felt as Mr Blair arrived for that crucial meeting on March 22. Inside the pub, The Shepherd's Inn, three circular tables had been pushed together and the Prime Minister was briefed in turn by farming union officials, county councillors and tourist leaders. "After about an hour and half, I was bored, frankly," recalls Brig Birtwhistle. "Eventually, the Prime Minister eyeballed me over the table and said: 'Will the administrative arrangements hold up?' "I replied: 'I am not a logistician, Prime Minister, but in my opinion they won't.' "We then took a break and Blair looked very lonely. Leaders need leading sometimes so I went across to him. He said: 'How long do you think it's going to take?' I said: 'Prime Minister, I haven't got a bloody clue.' ..."

Feb 16 ~ An alternative to the NFU for graziers?

"Calling Chairmen and all graziers..."

Feb 16 ~ Humanity should learn "a lesson in humility"...... Read the article by Barry Commoner in this month's American Harper's Magazine "UNRAVELING THE DNA MYTH" debunking the theory upon which genetic engineering relies

- that the DNA double helix structure is the exclusive agent of inheritance in all living things:
Extract: "Our leading scientists and scientific entrepreneurs (two labels that are increasingly interchangeable) assure us that these feats of technological prowess.... are nonetheless safe and reliable. We are told that everything is under control. Conveniently ignored, forgotten, or in some instances simply suppressed, are the caveats, the fine print, the flaws and spontaneous abortions. Most clones exhibit developmental failure before or soon after birth, and even apparently normal clones often suffer from kidney or brain malformations.......The list of malfunctions gets little notice; biotechnology companies are not in the habit of publicizing studies that question the efficacy of their miraculous products or suggest the presence of a serpent in the biotech garden. ...Last February, Crick's gamble suffered a spectacular loss. In the journals Nature and Science and at joint press conferences and television appearances, the two genome research teams reported their results. The major result was "unexpected".......people are only about as gene-rich as a mustard-like weed (which has 26,000 genes) and about twice as genetically endowed as a fruit fly or a primitive worm-hardly an adequate basis for distinguishing among "life as a fly, a carrot, or a man." ...... if the human gene count is too low to match the number of proteins and the numerous inherited traits that they engender, and if it cannot explain the vast inherited difference between a weed and a person, there must be much more to the "ultimate description of life" than the genes, on their own, can tell us.....The discovery that the human genome is not much different from the roundworm's led Dr. Eric Lander, one of the leaders of the project, to declare that humanity should learn "a lesson in humility."......what is known about the prion is a somber warning that processes far removed from the conceptual constraints of the central dogma are at work in molecular genetics and can lead to fatal disease...." DNA did not create life; life created DNA" See whole article

Feb 16 ~ Shadow Agriculture Minister Ann Winterton will be visiting Tynedale on March 18th to meet farmers recovering from the foot-and-mouth epidemic.

According to the Hexham Courant Mrs Winterton, the MP for Congleton, spent many holidays in the Allendale area in her youth, and is anxious to meet local farmers there as well as going to Hexham Mart.

Feb16 ~ Bob Shaw says,"Things will never be the same again" Those of us who remember Bob's superhuman efforts in the early months of the foot and mouth holocaust will be particularly saddened

by the extract from the Independent story today by Ian Herbert, about "Cumbria's empty fells in which we learn that Bob Shaw's application for the post-foot-and-mouth business support grant has been turned down. Bob is a highly respected contract shepherd "who was tending 18 flocks a year before foot-and-mouth took out 14 of them. His other line of business is shearing alpaca across Britain but he did not leave Cumbria last summer for fear of making dangerous contact with the infected national herd. He's £ 20,000 down but has been unsuccessful in his application for the post-foot-and-mouth business support grants which are decidedly easier to procure if you're in the tourism business. For the first time in 12 years, the Cumbrian lambing season won't provide Mr Shaw with enough work this spring so he'll be off on a nationwide alpaca-shearing tour in the hope of seeing off the Australian and New Zealand shearers who pinched his contracts last year. "It's those of us who weren't directly affected, by not running farms or having infected herds, who have felt this most, financially," said Mr Shaw. "Things will never be quite the same."

Feb 15 ~ Another non-report from the BBC about the Lessons Learned inquiry in Scotland reports this evening that Ross Finnie has praised what he calls the "determination and resilience"

of farmers affected by the foot-and-mouth crisis. "Ross Finnie told an inquiry into the outbreak that those in Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders had been "instrumental" in tackling the threat of the disease spreading further, " says the BBC report which goes on to repeat the word independent and to tell those who do not already know that Dr Anderson's "team, which is studying the effects of foot-and-mouth across Britain, has already visited Devon and Wales."

Feb 15 ~ Now British horses need passports....

An EU regulation requiring that horses intended for human consumption need passports has been interpreted by our regulation obsessed government as justification to insist that ALL horses and donkeys in England and Wales have passports and identification numbers, (at the expense of their owners). In a statement likely to cause owners to laugh hollowly, Defra has promised to "keep bureaucracy to a minimum." According to a report in EDP24, a Norfolk news site, Alun Michael said in a written Commons answer, that by December 31, 2003 all horses and ponies must have passports. "The Government also intends to introduce a unique identification number for all horses and ponies," he added...... A Whitehall official stressed yesterday that the decision has been taken following discussion with "key stakeholders in the industry."

Feb 15 ~ There are now only three more days left before the nationally important High Court hearing

for a proper public inquiry into the foot and mouth crisis - to be fully independent of the government rather than one chaired by a former advisor to Tony Blair and whose secretariat is based in the Cabinet Office. The proceedings promise to be full of interest. Space will be limited. Supporters are advised to arrive early at the High Court in the Strand. The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10.30 am.

Feb 15 ~ The National Trust, in a remarkably po-faced reaction, has complained about the astro-turf milk bottle placed in the hands of the nude Cerne Abbot giant

(see below) A spokesperson said that the National Trust was " concerned the actions of the farmers could have damaged the historically-important chalk outline"
We have been concerned for some time that the National Trust, which we used to trust and support to the hilt as a national treasure itself, has now lost its way in a political maze - not unlike several other national institutions such as the RSPCA, the RSPB and others.

Feb 14 ~ Elliot Morley, with an ambiguity unlikely to have been intended, said, "It is regrettable that a further two instances have come to light...''

responding to today's news that meat from the offspring of two BSE-infected cattle has entered the food chain. Mr Morley said that DEFRA would now " tighten procedures to minimise the risk of another case"
Peter Ainsworth comments: "Today's news is yet another serious blow to public confidence in Government measures to ensure the safety of British food. "One mistake might be understandable, but this is the fourth case since November where meat from the offspring of BSE-infected cattle has entered the foodchain, and it begs the question of how many other such cases have been missed. "Barely a week goes by without some further incident which reveals the shambles at the heart of DEFRA. "Consumers and the farming industry deserve better than the carelessness and incompetence that have become the hallmarks of Margaret Beckett's department."
According to Ananova this evening, Defra officials are "investigating the matter" and that" legal action against the farmers concerned" was being considered.

Feb 14 ~ The giant milk bottle (30 feet high) which is now being held by the Cerne Abbas giant in Dorset

reminds us that each year 25,000 tonnes of pesticide are sprayed over the British countryside, including dairy farms, and that we have traces of 300 to 500 potentially harmful chemicals in our bodies mostly as a result of the food we eat. See article in icWales today.

Feb 13 ~ The news that a thousand farms are now unable to move cattle because of a tuberculosis crisis that is spreading across the UK

and that TB has spread - that is to say JUMPED - beyond the South West of England to Cumbria and Scotland - not to mention France - pours cold water on the much vaunted claims by John Krebs and co that bovine TB is spread by badgers... Pat Gardiner of www.go-self-sufficient.com comments: " Another rural myth exploded, Well it wasn't cattle movements and there were not too many badgers hitchhiking up the motorways - so how is TB spread?"

Feb 13 ~ We notice with gloom that £143million was spent by the government on advertising the Labour Party last year.

Alison Hardie, political correspondent of the Scotsman, reports: "The government's record spending on advertising itself is to be put under the microscope, amid suspicions that taxpayers' money was used to boost the Labour Party. Latest industry figures show the government's spree has shot it ahead of multi-national consumer companies, such as Procter & Gamble, to become Britain's biggest advertiser. .... Alex Salmond: "It is indefensible for the government to waste £143 million of taxpayers' money on advertising itself and its own propaganda. In no other country in the world is the government the biggest advertiser. "This is money that should be invested in front-line public services - not blown on New Labour spin." (more)

Feb 13 ~ Slobodan Milosevic went on trial yesterday accused of orchestrating a murderous campaign of "medieval savagery" against his own people during nearly a decade of conflict in the Balkans.

Like Macbeth, he must have known deep down that murder will out and that there would, in the end, be a terrible reckoning. The medieval savagery inflicted on the farmers of Cumbria, Yorkshire, Devon, Wales and elsewhere and on their stock will never be forgotten either and we can only hope that the dawning realisation, noticed on the face of Dr Iain Anderson at the first Lessons Learned public meeting in Okehampton, will soon reach the rest of the population. The majority in our towns and cities still have no idea why the foot and mouth crisis of 2001 will be a stain on our British reputation for "fair play" for ever .

Feb 13 ~For those who sense a global unease rather than merely a British one,

George Monbiot's article in yesterday's Guardian gives much to mull over. "...other interests in Afghanistan are doing rather nicely. On January 29, the IMF's assistant director for monetary and exchange affairs suggested that the country should abandon its currency and adopt the dollar instead. This would, he explained, be a "temporary" measure, though, he conceded, "when an economy dollarizes, it takes a little while to undollarize." The day before, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development revealed that part of its aid package to Afghan farmers would take the form of GM seed." See Democwatch

Feb 12 ~ Letter in Western Morning News

We are informed that in a letter in the Western Morning News, Dr. Iain Anderson (Lessons Learned Inquiry) admits that he was wrong to be seen in the company of top DEFRA official, Mr Tim Render during and after his visit to Okehampton, Devon. Dr. Anderson says that he was not listening to Tim Render whilst they were on the bus together; he was actually asleep.

Feb 12 ~ "We run the risk that by 2010 the UK agricultural industry is acknowledged as the one with great vision, but as we stand up on the podium to receive the cup, we fall over because we have bled to death." says Vic Robertson in today's Scotsman.

We have watched with ever-growing disbelief the catalogue of crises to hit farming. The Inquiries all say they do not want to be "recriminative" to use Dr Anderson's word. We do not agree. If officials are not prepared to be accountable they have no right to be officials. There are many who should be brought to account. The demise of slaughter houses and the hardships this brought both to farmers and animals, the bungling, dodging and weaving of successive food scares, the refusal to allow independent research into BSE, the peculiar and secretive handling of Classical Swine Fever, the eradication of millions more farm animals during the FMD crisis, the secrecy, bullying and imposition of the Official Secrets Act throughout the past months, the pretence of "independent" scientific advice and official inquiries, the treatment of countless people who are still suffering and whose lives will never be the same again ....A proper full public inquiry must be undertaken if Britain is to have any further claim to being a "democracy" rather than a country slipping quietly and unpleasantly into tyranny.

Feb 11 ~ A letter in today's Telegraph from Zac Goldsmith shows how right to be concerned are those who fear the proliferation of GM crops - whose cross pollination is now producing weeds that are super-resistant to herbicides

SIR - Brian Johnson says (letter, Feb 7) that English Nature has "not found gene transfer from crops to weeds, but from one variety of GM crop to another."
In fact the research has discovered cross-pollination between different types of GM varieties, leading to super resistance in their unintended offspring. (The term pesticide is routinely used to cover herbicides and other forms of chemical pest control.)
"In effect," reports English Nature's own press release on the research, "they are on the road to becoming nuisance weeds." Is it really worth taking the risk?
From: Zac Goldsmith, The Ecologist, London SW10"

Feb 10 ~ The number of people who have made money out of other people's misery

just keeps on growing. See email

.

Feb 10 ~ Franz Fischler's Home Page can be viewed here

"I remain at your disposal for further questions..." writes Mr Fischler. David suggests "I reckon we should inform the people who actually make the decisions that determine our future." and sends a short list of contact links.

Feb 9 ~ " .........On the same day, the government announced 44 new trials of genetically engineered crops, which will be planted so close to fields of conventional crops that the further contamination of the foodchain is guaranteed.

Today, parliament will debate the varied and fascinating career of John Birt, the government's transport adviser, who turns out to be working for one of Britain's major transport operators, Richard Branson. The government seems to be looking for trouble. So what on earth is going on? Given that the government's love affair with big business provides the substance of all the major scandals it has suffered since taking office, why does it keep hopping into bed with corporate power? " More from George Monbiot from Thursday's Guardian

Feb 9 ~ The hunting issue is one that arouses such passions that reason rarely gets a look in.

Rupert Isaacson's essay in today's Telegraph takes a cool look at the situation. It is an interesting and logical article in an illogical country where politicians will fight furiously and at length to introduce anti-hunting legislation to protect foxes (which will then be gassed, trapped and shot) but who sent healthy breeding ewes to their deaths - not to mention millions of other healthy animals and pets - without a murmur of protest.

Feb 7 ~ Mr Roy Miller (see report in icWales) was heard to say "...the handling of foot and mouth? SHAMBOLIC...

" ....We saw a lot of SHAM and there was a load of......."

Feb 7 ~ Mrs Beckett will be talking at the NFU conference today.

Not surprisingly, she will tell be telling the farmers there that they should work in partnership with the government and that they need to "forge links with their markets" and the rest of the food chain to "meet the challenges of a changing world". Meanwhile, that other organisation which works not just in partnership with the government but hand in glove, the new-look RSPB, has conducted a survey among 997(sic) people and reports that only a third of them value the British country as a source of food. 70% of those questioned apparently see the countryside as a place for animals and habitats. ( One wonders whether the other 30% actually stated that all animals and their habitats should be removed from the UK or whether they should be confined to towns.) On the basis of this survey the RSPB is "calling on the Government to act quickly and positively on the recommendations of the Curry Report." According to Ananova a RSPB spokesman said, : "These results fly in the face of the kind of resistance to change we heard farmers' leaders expressing last week." The RSPB is evidently becoming a force to be reckoned with...

Feb 7 ~ José Bové France's highest court upheld José Bové's three-month prison sentence yesterday.

He may get a reprieve, since he has already spent nearly three weeks in jail in the case. A lower court, in applying the high court's decision, could order him to spend time in a supervised work release program. However, Bove said he would refuse any type of punishment except prison. "Either I'm guilty and I go back to prison, or I'm innocent and I shouldn't have been convicted," he said. "If they want to come get me, they know where I live." Several French political parties said they opposed the sentence and stood behind Bove. The French Communist Party called the court's decision "unjust and grotesque," while the Greens praised Bové's "civil disobedience."

Feb 6 ~ Mr Gill said: "I look to our conference to give a clear message about the future direction of the industry, not just to the farming community but to the nation."

The arrogance of this is a little breathtaking. Marie Skinner, the Norfolk farmer who is bavely standing for election as vice-president, was banned by Ben Gill from addressing the council which elects officials."Anywhere else it would be scandalous; in the NFU,.... it's standard. " said the Sunday Times last week....."They had a vote on whether they would let me address them as I am the only candidate not on the council, and they voted against. What I didn't know was they were only voting on whether to allow me to speak for one minute." Her opponents "have lots of cronies on the council; if it were one member one vote, I would get it". Democracy, it seems, is a novel concept: when she asked for room on her election leaflet for a mini-manifesto, they looked incredulous.
"Sir Simon Gourlay, a former NFU president, describes her as a "breath of fresh air" and the council as "old farts". He says he will vote for her, then resign. This election could split the union. "

Feb 6 ~ The news that 8,000 tons of beef will be destroyed because of "faulty tests" comes today from Berlin.

F.A.Z. BERLIN/MAINZ. Following the recent discovery that testing procedures in Bavaria designed to detect mad cow disease, or BSE, were carried out negligently, almost 8,000 tons of beef will be taken off the market and destroyed, it was announced on Monday.
The Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture Ministry said that the meat of all animals over 24 months of age that had been tested for bovine spongiform encephalopathy in an unlicensed laboratory in Westheim would be declared unfit for human consumption and recalled......
Like FMD, it is becoming more and more apparent that BSE too is a highly political disease, about as divorced from common sense and genuine scientific integrity as it is possible to get..

Feb 5 ~ The Royal Society of Edinburgh will be visiting the Borders on 26th February (Newtown St Boswells).

"...we shall be entirely in listening mode"
See note from the Royal Society of Edinburgh which makes it clear that you do not have to live in Dumfries /Galloway or in the Borders to ask to give evidence nor to attend the open meetings. Anyone from anywhere with a point to make should come and emphasise their views to the executive. Those who want to give oral evidence in private (i.e. instead of coming all the way to Edinburgh) should write in and say so, whether or not they have made a submission.

Feb 5 ~ Margaret Beckett in Kendal today said Cumbria had been "well served by ministerial visits".

She warned farmers that they would have to find their own solutions to an industry-wide slump - it was NOT the Government's role to make supermarkets pay better prices for quality Cumbrian goods. Elaine says, "Beckett (and it wasn't cardboard Marge this time) appeared on local TV yesterday, watching the cows being milked whilst having her cup of tea in the "viewing gallery" cafe of the farm shop at Sizergh, near Kendal. When she was asked about the lack of ministers visiting the county, she replied that the Prime Minister had visited "more than once". There were a handful of vocal protesters outside. One gentleman onlooker remarked that she might be hearing the complaints of the people but she "was not listening"...."

Feb 5 ~"Describing the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as a "trough in which some pigs are more equal than others", Dr. Richard North, research director in the EU, points out that the UK has a struggle to compete with most of her EU 'partners'.

France leads the field of agri-investment with a commitment of £1.2 billion per year, equating to 17.5% of the EU budget and helped 11,952 young farmers fund their businesses from 1990 -97. In comparison, Britain will draw down only 3.5% of the Rural Development fund and offered assistance to just 27 new entrants."
Essential reading today is this article by Pat Bird on " sustainable agriculture" ( in the light of the Curry report ) with its ironic and scathing comments about the trade advantages brought about by other countries' farming methods. Not for a moment would she approve of those practices being used here - but the article clearly reveals how very steeply the playing field is sloping away from us.

Feb 5 ~ On vaccination, there are two potential ways in which it might be used in a future outbreak, namely for eradication and containment. We find that the Government should set aside its perceived presumption against vaccination

and explore how modern vaccination techniques could help tackle future outbreaks without resorting to the disastrous policy of killing and of contiguous culls with its attendant disposal problems that during 2001 brought both farming and tourism to their knees.
1.13 To this end we suggest that Government give much greater priority to more scientific research into vaccination backed with appropriate funds and contracts.
1.14 While we welcome the move by Government (since our Inquiry) to set up an international conference to discuss vaccination, it should go further and initiate international co-operation (beyond the EU) on vaccination by setting up an international partnership that would explore the issues, agree best practice, co-operate in vaccine development and production, and adopt a global strategy to which all livestock producing countries could sign up. This alone will create the level playing field for all producers.
1.15 But, in the short term, the use of vaccination to contain the disease and thus reduce the pressure on the system of slaughtering and disposal must be considered.
1.16 We find that the whole question of using vaccination in the interest of temporary containment must be explored in the context of 1.12 above. DEFRA should recognise that farmers routinely inject stock as part of their livestock husbandry. The ridiculous and dangerous situation brought about by attempts at last-minute training of vaccinators at Hatherleigh should never be repeated because there are clear alternatives. From the full Devon Inquiry Report

Feb 4 ~ " My Lords, I fear that noble Lords will find the Minister's response inadequate and disappointing."

Baroness Byford was not impressed with the answer to her question last Thursday. See Parliamentary Page

Feb 4 ~ The hell that my wife, children and I had to endure can only be imagined. The misery was down solely to the arrogance, rudeness, thoughtlessness and sheer bullying of one organisation - MAFF

(More) The Devon Inquiry pages (see left frame) have a huge section of eye witness accounts. Most are almost too upsetting to read. Warmwell would like to reproduce some of these "voices" so that the government's assurance that no one really wants an inquiry may perhaps be challenged.

Feb 4 ~ Fireworks hurt 8,000 animals

A report in today's Times says thousands of animals were injured by fireworks in Scotland last year, according to a report published yesterday by Scotland's biggest animal charity. The Scottish SPCA has called for a change in laws regulating the sale of fireworks after a survey of vets throughout Scotland showed that up to 10,000 pets and farm animals were killed or injured in 2001.

Feb 4 ~ A cow story from the Telegraph today neatly explains Enron:

Capitalism: you have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies. You sell them all and retire on the income.
Enron capitalism: you have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer to get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Jersey (of course) company secretly owned by your chief financial officer, who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on six more.
Now do you see why a company with $62 billion in assets has gone bust?

Feb 2 ~ The Cumberland News reported yesterday that all of the 1,852 Cumbrian farms affected by foot and mouth have now been given a clean bill of health.

It says, "Eleven months after the first case was confirmed in the county the last of the farms on which animals were slaughtered have been declared clean. The milestone, reached on Monday, means all farms affected have now been given their FM7 forms by Defra. Defra in Carlisle had to recruit and train 175 cleansing and disinfection (C&D) officers to supervise the process on the farms. The training developed in Cumbria was adopted nationally for cleansing and disinfection staff employed in other areas. Twenty-one days after a farm has been given an FM7, 'sentinel' stock can be moved onto the holding under licence. The stock is then monitored and, after a further 28 days, the sentinels are inspected and blood samples taken from any sheep or goats. Providing tests come back negative, all Form A restrictions on the farm are lifted and the farmer can carry out further restocking. On the other hand, farmers can choose to wait for four months after being issued with a FM7 before restocking."

Feb 2 ~ Marie Skinner, the Norfolk farmer who on Thursday is standing for the vice-presidency of the NFU has been embarrassed by a letter sent to the Prime Minister by her husband on the subject of hunting.

Mrs Skinner knew nothing about the letter.
She said the most upsetting thing was that her NFU election campaign had been damaged by views that were not her own. She has sought to rally her support and says she remains hopeful that her campaign will survive the controversy.

Feb 2 ~ A vaccination policy would have been a thousand times cheaper... Another extract that reminds us that none of this heartbreaking waste was necessary.

"Last year the Bromwells did not make enough money to pay tax. This year will be slightly better but the thing that obsesses them is the idea that none of this was necessary. "If we could have vaccinated, I would have done so in March," says Phillip. Their creamery would have taken the milk from vaccinated cows, he says. Vaccination would have cost him £250 to £300. In comparison, the entire cost of culling - ie, slaughtering, rendering, cleaning, compensation, etc - was close to £300,000. "A vaccination policy would have been a thousand times cheaper," he says. Phillip and Gillian take me to the barn to look at their new stock. They do not have names, yet, but they will. "The worst is behind us," says Phillip, his eyes looking particularly large and sad behind his spectacle lenses.

Feb 2 ~ THE BBC has been accused of scaremongering about the dangers of biological terrorism

According to today's Times, " Smallpox 2002: Silent Weapon predicts that a virus set loose by a lone terrorist could set off the worst pandemic of disease the world has seen. ..
Insufficient stocks of vaccine and forced quarantine measures lead to riots and an infrastructure breakdown, according to the script.
...John Eldridge, editor of Jane's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence, said the BBC's figures were alarmist and irresponsible. "They seem to be using simple arithmetical extrapolation."
However, an article from Jane's Security Intelligence Review - not noted for its alarmist tendencies - was published in early February before the foot and mouth outbreak in the UK was known about and months before Sept 11. It was copied onto this website last October. It said:
.....deliberate sabotage is traditionally not something health officials have actively looked for when investigating crop or animal disease outbreaks. The implication here is that more acts may have actually taken place than are known about. Animal and plant health officials in Washington concede this is a possibility, . .......Colonel Robert Kadlec, a US Air Force biowarfare expert, has somewhat ominously concluded that: "Agroterror offers an adversary the means to wage a potentially subtle yet devastating form of warfare, one which would impact on the political, social and economic sectors of society and potentially threaten national survival itself."

Feb 2 ~ An email from Michael, responding to Dr Watkins' submission reminds us of the countless episodes of Defra wanting to kill first and not ask questions afterwards.

"This is from the Farmers Guardian : "Vet Helen O'Hare, who worked for DEFRA said, 'This was not the biggest foot and mouth outbreak, it was the biggest slaughter of animals and that was because of the contiguous cull'. She said she nearly broke down after a farmer was told his animals had to be culled because they showed symptoms of the virus. According to the vet, the blisters in some of the animals mouths had been caused by lime , which the farmer had spread on the fields, but officials in London would not give vets 12 hours to prove it was not foot and mouth. The farmers neighbours were also taken out, resulting in the slaughter of 16,000 animals, but all blood tests came back negative."

Feb 1 ~ An important and lengthy article in The Times 2last Thursday, written by Ann Treneman, looks at the "winners" and losers of the crisis....

...farmers' wrath is reserved for the Government. "The Government has made it clear that we are totally expendable," says one farmer's wife as she stans in her cold front room, her red, rough hands gripping each other. "They want to cull us."
(Wendy) Vere says, the farmers' trust in the Government, which was already wavering, has been shaken to the core. Vere knows of several farms that lost stock under the "contiguous cull" policy even though there was no longer any risk of the disease. The reason? Panic. MAFF was caught "with its pants down", trying to deal with an outbreak that was out of control from the beginning.
"You had people running around in little circles and one person sitting in front of a computer screen going: that farm has to go, that farm has to go, that farm has to go. And you've got someone on the ground saying, there's no point in sending another slaughter team because there has already been one here."
She kept a record of some of the people she spoke to during that period. She thinks a public inquiry is vital. "Nothing will be learnt and the next time we get a major disease outbreak - it may not be foot-and-mouth - they still won't be able to mount an effective defence. And so it will be exactly the same scenario, with civil servants running around scratching their heads, saying 'Shit, what should we do now?'" But was it really like that? "Yes. I may not have been working for the Ministry but I have friends who did and I have had it from the horse's mouth that that was exactly what it was like."
She hands me a plastic bag with something hairy in it. "That's cow hair and skin." (MORE)

Feb 1 ~" I hope that everyone with little gems like these will surface and make them known -

it does lighten our lives - if only slightly.." Pat R sends a couple of true stories about the efficiency of the Ministry we all know and wish we didn't.

Feb 1 ~ Simon Jenkins, writing in The Times today:"Observers might think that Commons committees have power,

especially as they are always described by the BBC as "influential". Yet consider the issues of the day. On the foot-and-mouth disaster the Agriculture Committee says it "does not want to duplicate the work" of government inquiries. So much for fearless scrutiny. "

Feb 1 ~ Lawrence has writtena letter to Nick Harvey MP concerning his growing disquiet about the South West Regional Development Agency....

. I object to the growing power of this unelected body, the members of which are appointed by the Secretary of State. Struck by the SWRDA's careless treatment of small farm based businesses like ours, I have looked at the composition of their board. None represent or have direct experience of farming and particularly the sort of small family farm that characterises the South West. The only contact with any sort of agriculture on the board is through a former pub retailer who now chairs a large Milk selling organisation, and a member of a Labour Party affiliated 'think tank' on 'Agricultural Reform'.....
an increasing number of the agencies which deal with our affairs in a quasi governmental capacity, like Business Link, and Energywatch, for example, are in fact private limited companies. I am very disturbed to find that Companies are no longer required to list their Directors ... (The whole letter makes for alarming reading)

Feb 1 ~ A quotation sent via the European Parliament has landed in our inbox:

"The citizens (of Europe) lack the instruments of power to force decision-makers to look after their interests. The inhabitants are merely the subjects (or subordinates - Untertanen) of power, not themselves the holders of power - they are not empowered to authorise or instruct the rulers".
Erik Erikson. Oslo University

Jan 31 ~ An impassioned email just received from Sam - "Please pass this on to all those who feel anger and frustration getting them down and tugging at their sanity....

to those who had Defra's slaughterers at their own gates, those who tried to help others, those who were surrounded and sickened by senseless killing, those who refused to turn away from the knowledge of what was happening, those who look in despair at the way the media have obediently vilified the wrong enemy....Remember that you are most definitely not alone. There are people both here and in other countries who share your outrage and continuing pain. Please keep on fighting, writing, talking and supporting. Buy a winnie teashirt, get people to read the damning report of the Devon Inquiry and go on letting your MP know that you are not taken in by spin. The behaviour of DEFRA, the SVS and the government during the last months was as illegal as it was immoral. The provisions of the new Animal Health bill seeking to give a retrospective "legality" to the holocaust are illegal under EU law. Please keep telling everyone that everything is NOT all right... "

Jan 31 ~ Parliamentary Question in the House of Lords

THURSDAY 31ST JANUARY .
*The Baroness Byford - To ask Her Majesty's Government whether their decision that the Department for the Environment, Food and Regional Affairs should submit only written answers to Northumberland County Council's inquiry into the foot-and-mouth outbreak was in the public interest.

Jan 31 ~ Germany is the ONLY other EU country, apart from the UK which calling for an end to production subsidies.

writes David. This is because it is ONLY the UK and Germany that are net contributors to the EU Fund and as such are subsidising farmers in 14 other EU countries. Unless the UK can change the rules on funding, it might as well try to end subsidies because of any subsidies we claim, the EU claims back about 75% (Maastricht). At the end of the day it will be the EU that decides the way forward, not the UK - or in this case just England. It only takes one country to veto an idea and it is killed off. Richard North reckons they will bodge and bodge so Curry's "vision" is a bit like our Parish Council telling Westminster what it must do.

Jan 30 ~ Roy Miller has kindly sent us a copy of his letter to the Lessons Learned Inquiry.

Part of the contents concerns the cases in Wales, reported as "Welshpool cases" that were nothing of the kind. His efforts saved an estimated 70 farms who had been going to be culled. None subsequently ever contracted the disease.

Jan 30 ~ It will be interesting to see whay reaction the following short paragraph from Robert Ulig's article in today's Telegraph provokes:

Every year, CAP channels £3 billion a year in production subsidies from Brussels directly into British farmers' pockets.

The article lists many of the main proposals from the report - which is useful since the link from the Cabinet Office does not work.

Jan 30 ~ Tessa writes realistically about organic farming in the UK to the Forum

I don't think many people would argue with the principles behind an environmentally friendly bias; the reality however might be rather more difficult to implement.....We should also face the fact that it is cheaper to import organic food from abroad and will continue to be so. Organic crops are extremely labour intensive; labour is very much cheaper in less developed countries than it is in the UK, and far more easily available. I cannot see either rural or urban populations turning out in force to hand-weed carrots or pick potatoes at high speed for low wages...

Jan 30 ~ In investigating the South West Regional Development Agency,

the shadowy body which decided to interpret the State Aid Rules in such a way that practically no farm based business could recieve assistance from the SW Business Recovery Fund, Lawrence has found some worrying information - including an ENRON link.

Jan 30 ~ From the updated "Light Relief" page... Click here
to see the Leader of the FREE WORLD in action.....and don't forget to click on both "Bush" and "Blair" to see what it is that each follows...

(thank you David). We also hear today some more up-to-the-minute news about cheering advances in "helping the environment"; EU funded research costing £2 million will investigate the possibility of adding herbs and plant oil extracts to cattle feed. The study carried out in Aberdeen is aimed at "helping the environment" and "animal welfare" Ananova

Jan 30 ~ An additional 5,000 foreign students will be allowed into the UK over the next two years to help the agricultural sector, the Government announced today.

Over that period, the annual quota of students admitted through the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme will increase from 15,200 to 20,200, with 3,500 extra work cards for 2002.
Those participating in the scheme must be in full-time education and aged between 18 and 25. In 2000, the bulk of those taking part came from Poland, the Ukraine, Lithuania and Bulgaria. http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=43119183

Jan 30 ~ Dot writes: Just watched Beckett on Channel 4

when pressed it appears we are to expect to see less animals and more wetlands, she says they will flood fields to relieve pressure elsewhere. I keep waiting to hear mention of improved animal welfare in this brave new world of hers, some chance.

Jan 30 ~ MORE signs the organic revolution is faltering....

Supermarkets Tesco, Somerfield and Safeway have refused to back The Organic Targets Campaign, which wants to see 30pc of UK agricultural land convert to organic by 2010.

Jan 29 ~ Chris Chapman's articles and photographs are outstanding and now form an appendix to the full Devon report of Professor Mercer.

One, in stark black and white, shows the last small calf to be slaughtered on Philip Lake's farm, being carried awkwardly by two whitecoated figures, to its death. This is one animal. There were nearly ELEVEN MILLION killed in Britain; a fraction only were infected. The work of Chris Chapman, unemotional and factual as it is, should be enough to explain to those still unaware of the scale of the disaster why some of us continue to cry out for a proper and independent inquiry, one that will name names and shame the powerful forces that did this to the country.

Jan 29 ~ The article in the New Statesman yesterday may raise blood pressure to dangerous levels in some readers.

It is well worth studying however since it will appear to many to be good sense. While the article calls the handling of the foot and mouth crisis by the government a "fiasco" it shows no understanding of the plight of the family farmers and refers contemptuously to the "Range Rover classes". Paying farmers to enhance landscape value and wildlife diversity would be a waste of money, because any public funds available for this purpose could be used far more effectively by conservation organisations than by people whose true interests lie elsewhere. .. The article advocates increasing the green field building of new housing. There is a real or assumed belief in the benefits to the Third World of globalisation. The writer almost seems to be suggesting that a landscape can be produced by wishing it into existence.Where farming became unviable and the planning regime continued to preclude development, land prices would fall. This would create the opportunity for wildlife organisations to create new native forests, flower-rich downland, heathland and wetlands. Local authorities would be able to provide more country parks. Individuals would create their own amenity woodlands and nature reserves. The article seems to look forward hungrily to the day when farming becomes "unviable" and this pastoral utopia can be achieved - but it will be the families who have farmed for generations and who created the landscape who are being forced out. What happens to them in the brave new utopia of Baroness Young and the "conservation organisations"? People are being led to believe in their right to roam - but for how long do ordinary people enjoy freedom of the land when it finally comes under State Control?

Jan 28 ~ Yet he did not then insist on public disclosure; he was too loyal to be a whistle blower. ...

William Rees Mogg has written today in The Times a frightening and sobering article about Enron and about the forces that led to the death of a good man, John Clifford Baxter, who until last May was the vice-chairman. Enron's spiralling deceptions did not involve the same private human misery as that suffered in the foot and mouth crisis, and William Rees Mogg makes no mention of it, nor of Maff /Defra or the State Veterinary Service but the similarities are striking. Many good people were and are involved in both. John Baxter's wife had said, "People are being investigated. People are being sued. This is going to follow people for the rest of their lives - people who didn't do anything wrong." William Rees Mogg considers that this was cause for Baxter's suicide: In front of the congressional inquiries he would have had to tell what he knew and that would have destroyed friends and colleagues. Calls for a public Inquiry into the foot and mouth crisis are not going to die away. The regaining of FMD free status has not silenced those who still recoil in horror at tragic episodes almost impossible to believe, who know they happened in Britain and who know they were officially sanctioned. Rees Mogg sums up his article: A final, frightening lesson is that bureaucrats find it very hard to avoid doing what they know to be wrong. Committees do not easily listen to moral arguments; they exist to facilitate practical action..." One begins to feel very sorry for the civil servants who were caught up in the FMD fiasco and tried to do their best in spite of what they could see around them.

Jan 28 ~ The Northumberland Inquiry. A collection of articles from the Morpeth Herald can be seen here.

There is an index. " The Chairman, Professor Michael Dower, told the inquiry's opening: "The panel very much regrets that neither DEFRA, nor the Army, nor the state veterinary service, will be submitting oral evidence or answering questions on their involvement. "They played a major part in the handling of the outbreak, and their absence will limit our ability to make a fair assessment of some issues. But it does not invalidate the inquiry, and we propose to do our best in their absence." The articles look at a range of evidence given. Alan Beith MP is particularly outspoken. What seems mainly to emerge from people's contributions is a heartbreaking catalogue of high-handed incompetence and bullying, based on ignorance.

Jan 28 ~ Why are animals still being killed in such numbers? An emailer writes .

"Someone in the area mentioned to me on Friday that there were still many animals being buried at Throckmorton pit under welfare disposal scheme and that one of her neighbours is doing very nicely finacially out of slaughtering the many animals that can not be moved. She said a lot of farmers were having to shoot their cows. She has been very reliable in the past,does anyone know anymore about all this?"

Jan 28 ~ Here are the comments about foot and mouth http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/inquiries/comments.pdf sent by DEFRA to the various inquiries...

Extracts that might raise some eyebrows: Mass burial sites were created in certain locations to cope with the needs. Such sites were established and used at Birkshaw forest, Lockerbie; Great Orton, Cumbria; Throckmorton, Worcestershire; and Tow Law, Durham. These sites are not being used at present.

Throughout the outbreak, the Government have kept vaccination actively under review. Vaccination would be used if scientific advice were clear that it was the most appropriate measure to shorten the outbreak. But vaccination on its own could never have eradicated FMD entirely. (Did anyone ever suggest that it could? It is interesting that Roy Anderson has joined the long list of those now promoting vaccination)

The use of vaccination in the Netherlands earlier this year did not save animals' lives. In fact for each case more animals were killed than would have been under the UK's contiguous cull policy (1-.000 animals per case in the Netherlands compared to 2000 per case in the UK) aLL vaccinated animals were killed and destroyed as required by the EU Decision that permitted the Dutch vaccination programme. (However..)

The Government recognised early in the outbreak that future EU and international policies for handling FMD would need to be reassessed, including the role of vaccination. The UK, with the Dutch, took the initiative to organise a conference that takes place in December 2001. Topics will include the possible future use of vaccination. (However..)

During the period of infectivity before FMD was confirmed on IP FMD 20001/04 (i.e. Bobby Waugh's farm at Heddon on the Wall) , windborne spread of virus had infected cattle and sheep on nearby farms in Northumberland (However....)

"We may well decide in the future to analyse the results of the inquiries with a view to drawing out their essential lessons and to consider whether all relevant questions have been dealt with effectively," says DEFRA......

MORE

Jan 27 ~ The Independent on Sunday article continues its glowing praise...

The strength of the report is that commissioners representing all interests in the countryside, from the food industry to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, have drawn it up. "For the first time," says the National Trust, another participant, "we have a consensus for change."
Readers of this website will be less inclined to be overwhelmed with optimism.
There is certainly a consensus, certainly new forces abroad; "new men waiting to cart away the rubbish of the past" as Trollope's "reformer" Mr Obediah Slope told an aghast Septimus Harding. There are "new persons" at the National Trust, at the RSPB, at the Environment Agency - but the "change" they all agree to is not perhaps quite that brand new.
The McSharry Reforms in 1992 saw the extension of the EU Common Agricultural Policy into an overall policy for rural areas, including social, environmental and economic viability. In Part One of Agenda 2000 (1997), the EU Commission explained what should have been the basis of its proposals for reform of the CAP: " ......Several reasons militate for such an approach: the risk of new market imbalances, the prospect of a new trade round, the aspiration towards a more environment-friendly and quality-oriented agriculture, and last but not least the prospect of enlargement." As Mr Morley said on 24th October last year : "We will continue to work closely with the Commission and other member states to drive forward the reform agenda to achieve a more economically rational CAP which contributes to the economic, environmental and social sustainability of the industry and rural economy."

Jan 26 ~ Final FMD pyres report published Food Standards Agency website

"The Food Standards Agency has released a final report on dioxins and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls in food from farms close to pyres used to dispose of carcasses from animals affected by foot and mouth disease.
This presents the results of the entire monitoring programme, including the outstanding data received since the last interim report was published in September 2001. These do not alter the conclusions we reached in September that the pyres have posed no additional risk to health through the food supply.
For copies of the report please contact Matthew Cooper at the Chemical Contaminants and Animal Feed Division, Food Standards Agency , Room 707C, Aviation House, 125 Kingsway, London, WC2B 6NH. Tel. 020 7276 8725:" e-mail matthew.cooper@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk

Jan 25 ~ News reports concerning GM crops can differ wildly in the messages they give. Today, the influential journal Nature reports, "China leads GM revolution: Government funding puts Chinese plant biotechnology second only to US."

suggesting that China has no doubts about the safety of GM. "China hopes GM crops will feed its growing population," writes Tom Clarke. "While westerners vacillate about the risks and benefits of genetically modified (GM) crops, China is embracing the technology......"
Meanwhile, we see on Monsanto's own website" US Launches Drive To Free World Trade In Genetically Modified Farm Produce" and read that " The United States wants to convince the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) 143 other members to open their markets to genetically modified farm products ..... the hundreds of millions of African children who have malnutrition..."
This altruism on the part of Monsanto should perhaps be viewed in the light of a report from Corpwatch.org USA: Washington Pressures EU to Drop GMO Labeling " Confidential documents obtained by Friends of the Earth Europe underline American opposition to European Union plans for compulsory tracing and labeling rules for all food and animal feed containing genetically modified organisms" and animal feed containing genetically modified organisms"
Perhaps the Americans are not yet aware that China herself - not perhaps quite as reassured as Nature seems to think - is insisting on labelling, as we see from the China.org site whose headline is: Compulsory Labeling of Genetically Modified Agro-products Introduced .... "GM plants, animals and microbes and their products as well as seeds, fertilizers and pesticides with GM organism, must have identification on their packaging, the regulation says. "
So, while the US is putting pressure on the EU to abandon plans for compulsory tracing and labeling rules, China is going to allow its population full information about what genetically modified material there is in both locally produced and imported products.

Jan 25 ~ Essential reading is The Guardian today, testing the water for UKOK,

"Good afternoon, British Tourist Authority." I am ringing about UKOK. "OK."
OK! "What kind of information do you require?"
I ask for "you-cock" but don't have the courage to let this hang in the air too long. ..... The phone rings two more times.
"Good afternoon, tourist information," says another, much jollier woman. "How can I help?"
I start asking for UKOK again.
UKOK, she explains patiently, is the name of the BTA campaign for 2002.
...... Hello, I am ringing from France, .... I am very worried about the NHS and have read all these horror stories about patients lying in wards in their own filth without treatment for days. In pools of blood.
The woman's voice, quite properly, becomes noticeably more brisk: "We've not heard that sort of story, sir." "It's very safe, sir. There's no problem with foot and mouth disease or anything like that."
Interesting: I haven't mentioned foot and mouth disease. .....MORE

Jan 25 ~ Smartgroups forum is still experiencing great difficulties.

Their latest information can be seen here in all its frustration.

Jan 24 ~ What is described in the Telegraph as a "four letter word" has been dreamed up to make foreign tourists feel that "it is safe to visit Britain after the foot and mouth outbreak

and September 11" Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, launching the "word" UKOK at the Tower of London yesterday, is apparently confident it would remind people that Britain was a vibrant and exciting place to visit. We are reminded in the same paper that Britain is being swept by a virus that causes vomiting.

Jan 24 ~ A report which says one in five children eats no fruit in a week and three in five eat no leafy green vegetables; Why Health is the Key for the Future of Farming and Food, is published by the Centre for Food Policy at Thames Valley University.

Its authors have concluded: "The Government will be judged by health goals. It is time that the food supply chain stopped passing the cost of ill health on to society." This report comes out only days before the government's own inquiry into the future of food and farming reports its findings.
Meanwhile, yesterday's rally and parliamentary lobby for organic targets at Westminster Central Hall and Houses of Parliament was campaigning for an Organic Targets Bill calling for 30% of farmland to be organic by 2010. Green peer Lord Beaumont of Whitley, the party's spokesperson on agriculture, fisheries and foods commented: "The government is committed to an intensification of farming which is probably incompatible with widespread conversion to organic. "The government wants to get rid of up to 25% of British farms in order to be more competitive in the face of globalisation. This would force some 50,000 people out of the industry...Yet smaller, less intensive, organic farms can be more productive per acre."
"Britain grows only 25% of its organic food, although 50% of it could be produced here. Half our organic food is unnecessarily imported. The UK market is strong, and should be supplied by British farms where possible" .... "As well as aiding the recovery of our agriculture in the aftermath of foot-and-mouth disease, this would reduce food miles, transport impacts and greenhouse gas emissions." Green Party News

Jan 23 ~ "Silence at Ramscliffe" Three articles by Chris Chapman, the first of which appeared in the Western Morning News yesterday

are here reproduced by kind permission of the author. They are poignant. The capacity for suffering of the people and of the animals involved comes through in both the writing and the photographs (more of which will be added in due course ) but what also comes across from the Lake family is an unparaded love for farming and for Devon.

Jan 23 ~ Does no one care about the great Scottish land grab? asks Alan Cochrane in today's Telegraph
Yes. We do.

Like most of the legislation brought to our attention lately all is not what it appears to be on the smooth surface. Just as the Animal Health amendment bill is about eradicating healthy animals, and the Lords Reform plans were designed to fill the House of Lords with Blair cronies, this so-called "reform" - the Land Reform bill in Scotland - is actually a three-pronged attack on property-holding by the Labour and Lib Dem coalition that is carving up Scotland and its traditional ways. Mr Cochrane writes that it might more accurately be called, the Class War Bill (Remaining Stages) Owners of the land will have no choice but to sell to local "communities".They will be paid "full market rates" but what happens to market rates when such plans are afoot? The Bill also allows crofters to buy the fishing rights on rivers, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, that come into community ownership schemes - and owners will have no choice but to sell. Landowners will now be taken to court for withholding access rights across their land - whatever the season and however valid their wishes to protect their land or animals from interference.
Mr Cochrane points out what seems to us the utterly surreal fact that it will be British lottery money that sweeps away centuries of work. Money raised by the National Lottery will be used to take the land and the rivers away from their traditional owners. It is yet another example, like everything we have seen in the past unbelievable months, of an outrageous misuse of power quietly slipping under the guard of the majority of ordinary, kindly people in the country who hear only - if they hear anything at all - the Politically Correct reasons for "reform". What will it take to wake the population up to what is happening in our once free country?

Jan 22 ~ NOT a cause for levity is the news that European farm commissioner Franz Fischler was unable to witness the launch of the European Food Safety Authority today.

He has food poisoning.
According to Farmers Weekly today Mr Fischler is believed to have salmonella poisoning and his engagements have been cancelled for a week. The European Food Safety Authority, launched without Mr Fischler's help, has a staff of 250 and its initial cost was around £ 25,000,000. With much the same confidence that we feel in the FSA's ability in this country to safeguard our interests, the people of Europe will be heaving a collective sigh at their luck in having the "rapid alert" system that the authority is to operate. It is as yet not certain from which country the "rapid alert" system will be operated since none of the bureaucrats can yet agree on a site for The European Food Safety Authority's permanent headquarters.

Jan 22 ~ The "Essential Reading" page is being developed with alphabetically listed files.

Please send any requests for specific information to be included. It could be a very useful resource for the many people now trying to get a full overview of the handling of the crisis.

Jan 22 ~ On this website alone, there are now references to 135 separate calls for a proper public inquiry

into the handling of the disease - and they are coming faster and more urgently, notwithstanding the promise of an independent inquiry in Strasbourg. The Western Morning News of 29 June 2001 said, Tony Blair yesterday repeated his claim that the foot and mouth crisis was in the "home straight" and blamed lax disinfection procedures in the farming community for the continuing spread of the disease. The Prime Minister again ducked calls for a full PUBLIC INQUIRY into the disaster, pledging only that there would be a "proper" INQUIRY when the epidemic was finally over.

Jan 22 ~ A letter in the Telegraph today needs no further comment:

SIR - I have just received a letter stating "in order to contact you quickly, we have used names from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs's (Defra) Animal Health database. If . . .your flock has been slaughtered as a result of foot and mouth disease, please accept our apologies".
This from the department that is planning to tell all farmers to install a computer so as to provide a direct link to Margaret Beckett's department in Whitehall in order for every activity on the farm to come under central supervision. What value the computer in a department that cannot even programme its own database to indicate which farms had suffered foot and mouth disease?
As long as Defra continues to maintain this level of insensitivity and incompetence, what hope does it have of recovering the confidence of the farmers and the rural community? At least we may feel reassured that the threat of Big Brother taking full control is still no more than empty words.
From: Col Jacqueline Smith, Brompton Regis, Somerset

Jan 21 ~ There are now so many pages of information on the warmwell website that we have put some of the more important of those not listed already on the left side menus on a page here

for anyone who wants to check on their overview of the crisis. More files will be added to this page in due course.

Jan 20 ~ From Bookers Notebook today: " .....on Monday the House of Lords spent six hours debating the Animal Health Bill,

which gives officials unprecedented powers to kill any animal they wish, and making it a criminal offence for the owners to object. Almost all the speakers were strikingly well-informed and excoriatng in opposition to this bizarre Bill, apart from three sad Blair nominees put up in a forlorn attempt to show that the minister, Lord Whitty, was not on his own. It was noticeable how many of the speakers were hereditaries, such as the Countess of Mar, Viscount Bledisloe, Earl Ferrers, the Duke of Montrose and Lord Willoughby de Broke, all themselves farmers. Others, such as Lord Plumb, former president of the NFU, and Lord Jopling, former minister of agriculture, were Tories with expert first-hand knowledge. Mr Blair's answer is to get rid of all these tiresome people and replace them with an assembly full of party clones who, since they will have even less power, will be even more ignorant and useless than their Commons counterparts. Such will be his memorial, in the country which gave the world parliamentary democracy. (You can read what individual Lords had to say here)

Jan 20 ~ An email just received: " Interestingly, today for a change I took a copy of the Sunday Express ( we sometimes do its crossword ). Delighted to find inside a full page " How the Bunglers Crippled Farming"

and then in the editorial "Foot and Mouth fallout" "..........With another highly-critical report due from MP`s this week, Tony Blair may find that the fallout from foot and mouth is as hard to handle as the disease itself."
They also think that he will get a good kicking in Prime Ministers Question Time this week.
Are all the press waking up I wonder. Fingers Crossed. Roger"

Jan 19 ~ "The traumatic effect on families, farmers and communities has been desperate. I refer not just to the mass slaughter and its effects; in many cases the farms which were not hit by foot and mouth or were not taken out by it were in a worse situation than those that were

because of the acute animal welfare problems and acute financial problems suffered by many such small businesses. In our part of the world many farms are, indeed, small businesses. Someone referred to bureaucratic bungling and mismanagement by DEFRA and MAFF. The Minister referred to "poor organisation". That is an interesting admission by him that all has not gone well in the foot and mouth outbreak and that that was not all down to bad, careless or malicious farmers. "Poor organisation" is the biggest euphemism I have heard in this House for a long time. In many cases, it was a shambles." Lord Greaves Jan 14th. You can read extracts from all the main speakers apart from the Minister in the Second Reading Debate in this digest. Speakers are in alphabetical order.

Jan 19 ~ News of the Apsley/Cash Parliamentary Petition.

The intention is to present the petition on Friday morning inside the chamber of the House of Commons by Bill Cash MP. It is very much hoped that the petition will arrive in style - in a hay wain pulled by a beautiful shire horse (called Duke) If this is confirmed, it would be nice to have supporters there cheering it in. More as news arrives. Lady Apsley writes, "HOPEFULLY THE MET POLICE WILL LET US DRIVE & WE HOPE WE WILL BE ABLE TO ENCOURAGE SUPPORTERS TO TURN UP AND SHOW THEIR BACKING. ALL MEDIA WILL BE INFORMED & LET'S SOCK IT TO 'EM!!! WILL KEEP YOU CLOSELY INFORMED - MORE ANON"

Jan 19 ~ Richard North's phrase "sleepwalking to disaster" eight months ago applies even more now. He coined it before the grotesque handling of the fmd crisis really got under way.

We had not had any inkling of the jackbooted provisions of the Animal Health Bill, nodded through by a supine House of Commons. The large scale cloning of animals for food was not - as today - considered viable let alone ethical. There had not been news of the 20% explosion of GM crops. Nor had anyone heard of the idea of "Licensing" British farms . The unthinkable is not only being thought but seriously discussed and then carrried out - and the lack of outcry in our formerly green and pleasant land only encourages the next outrage it seems.
Lawrence, for one, is not asleep. His open letter to Farming Today - after none of the Farming Today panellists had examined what sort of licensing rules would or could be applied, for what purpose, with what effect and why - is restrained in its fury: "Whatever the excuse, one can be sure that the licence would have a price tag. It would be an additional form of taxation - and it would give the government a controlling grip on the food supply - a potent lever of power. Imports of food can be controlled relatively easily at the point of entry into the country. It isn't quite so easy to control home grown food. Perhaps this would do the trick...."

Jan 18 ~"What are those people doing, cloaked in a little brief authority, visiting fear, stress and humiliation on law-abiding citizens of this country?

Is this the country that we are told is a beacon to the world--the country that the Prime Minister so recently boasted of as a power for good in the world?" So said Lord Willoughby de Broke in Monday night's debate. It can be read in its entirety from this website - but a digest of the main speakers and their points is being prepared and should be available soon. It might be courteous to write and thank these lords, ladies and baronesses whose well informed, cogent and often witty speeches have so heartened us and whose literate delivery is in such refreshing contrast to certain apologists for the Department every farmer rages against.

Jan 18 ~ Food Scares are seldom quite what they seem.

We read today that there are panicky investigations going on in Europe to track down animal feed and meat possibly tainted with a powerful antibiotic that can, according to Reuters," stop human blood cell production" An interesting article in yesterday's Independent went some way to exploring this very modern phenomenon of a food scare being prolonged, covered up or exploited by political forces. Peter Shears, in the Independent story says, "There seems to be increasing cause for concern that within the European Union that there may be "turf wars" - for example, between the United Kingdom and its new Food Standards Agency and the nascent European Food Authority, when it opens for business in 2002. Further friction may emerge between the US Food Safety Initiative and the European Union. Politicians will inevitably seek to play to the home gallery. ....................
The sad results of existing inadequate systems may have resulted from the uncoordinated appliance of science, but the public has lost confidence not just in the safety of what they eat but in the reliability of those they trusted to see to it that what they eat is safe.
The politics should be taken out of food safety, and science should - and should be seen to - drive the policy, rather than the much more complex political forces that have been evident in recent years. Politicians can call their food safety system "farm to fork", "gate to plate" or "stable to table", but publicity campaigns are worthless if systems fail to work."
The Times reports today... "An investigation is continuing after three elderly men died of salmonella poisoning contracted at a city hospital. South Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust said all three were being treated on medical ward seven at the Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow. Scottish health minister Malcolm Chisholm has demanded a report on the handling of the outbreak, which was first suspected on January 2 and confirmed by tests six days" later.

Jan 17 ~ Culling in Derbyshire. We are still baffled. We are grateful to have received the following messages:

*"I'm scanning everywhere on the net for a chance mention of it too. Dairy herds - whole dairy herds - seem odd for TB. I thought they just took those that failed the test. And is this across the whole county or all round in a cluster? DEFRA were due to re-start TB testing I know."
*"Re the rumours. I have been told today from John P that this is most likely TB testing. For the last 12 months - for obvious reasons - no testing has been done. According to John they will be culling out like mad now that the rendering plants are 'back to normal'. The cases in Derbyshire are probably TB culling. This would certainly explain of lot of theories we have all had."
*"Derbyshire statistics have not changed (except for minor 'cleaning')since late October - except for 220 sheep SOS (on suspicion) added to the data base on 13th December"
*"I spoke yesterday to a friend who farms near Ashbourne in Derbyshire. She says very serious TB problem in parts of Derbyshire and in her area it is believed that any killing would be attributable to this. However have never heard before of entire herds being culled for TB - usually it is only the reactors, but as DEFRA have the taste for blood now all this may have changed...."

Jan 17 ~ Essential and utterly compelling reading for anyone who wants to understand the dirty work afoot in its context is Richard North's "Death of British Agriculture"

This is as eye-widening as a best seller and, once you start reading, you are likely to find it difficult to stop. So much is explained within these pages. The outrageous behaviour of government departments, the political ineptitude of both main parties, the manoeuvering of the EU Commission over the past few years - all are revealed and much becomes clear about past year.

Jan 16 ~ An email just received (10.00 am) " It is staggering how inaccurate the NFU statements were on vaccination, you would be spitting feathers if you saw it."

" I used the link sent to you by Julian Thurgood to contribute to the NFU debate yesterday, and then after the debate watched the video recording of it. It is staggering how inaccurate the NFU statements were on vaccination, you would be spitting feathers if you saw it. The video clip can be seen by clicking the 56k icon on the R4 link page if you have the time. The point is they are going to provide a transcript shortly. What I would like to do is append notes to it commenting on what the truth is - would you be able to stick it up on the website? "
Yes. As soon as we receive the transcript and authoritative commentary we will put it on the Home page.

Jan 16 ~ We were grateful to receive this email and the quotation with which it ends:".. a great resource to those of us who are not natural joiners of pressure groups

and prefer to chisel away quietly. I was somewhat disappointed to see that the Country Life editorial characterised Warmwell as a " farmers' web-site". I prefer to think that (the gender specific reference apart) it exemplifies the spirit of Ella Wheeler Wilcox who said that " To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men."
More slaughter: we have been alerted to the fact that, according to the DEFRA web site, another 3,000 animals have been slaughtered since 14th January. We wonder, not for the first time, why the Defra site is so difficult to navigate and why the information, if found, is then so difficult to interpret. Were these animals perhaps pigs, slaughtered because of PMWS/PDNS ? If not - what? Is it dairy cows in Derbyshire? (see Home page) If so - why?

Jan 15 ~ Baroness Miller : "The Liberal Democrats accept that there is a need to amend and supplement the Animal Health Act 1981 but any such amendment must be based on scientific consensus and proper consultation. The Animal Health Bill that the government have proposed is based on neither.

As I outlined in my speech in the House of Lords, the government have commissioned three separate inquiries into the future of farming and food, none of which has been used as the basis of this Bill.
I also expressed concerns over the very wide ministerial powers conferred in the bill and the lack of onus on the Minister to justify decisions to slaughter.
I also raised the issues of long distance transportation of live animals and the risk of infection from imports, neither of which have been addressed in the Bill. I stated that I would like to see legislation which truly addresses the question of animal health, including imports, adequate geographical spread of abattoirs and regulations and incentives to encourage those who try to follow the highest animal welfare standards. I expressed concern at the lack of scientific evidence available to base any legislation on the eradication of scrapie."

Jan 15 ~ John Harvey on Farming Today yesterday: .... Fred Brown, the Foot and Mouth expert from Plum Islands laboratory in New York, who you will remember during the epidemic criticised the Government on their lack of a vaccination policy,

and also said he had a piece of equipment that could give an almost instantaneous result diagnosis of Foot and Mouth on the farm. Now, he was told, 'I am sorry, we haven't got time to listen, come back later' ...Doctor Berkhaut said he was very, very keen to involve people like Professor Brown in the Horizon Scanning program so rather than being left outside it all, perhaps in the future we will see people like Fred Brown welcomed inside." Thanks to Jon for another very important transcript.

Jan 15 ~ We are grateful to Julian from www,heartofcumbria.com for the following links:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/footandmouth/inquiry.shtml Foot and mouth inquiry live - from Northumberland, Listen in from Mon 14 to Fri 18 Jan 10.00 - 17.00 daily and http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/forum/newsid_1760000/1760484.stm Foot-and-mouth: Ask Kevin Pearce from the NFU - live forum - Tuesday 15th Jan 1500 GMT.

Jan 14 ~ Farmers Weekly is running a poll on whether you agree with the following:

Delegates at the Oxford Conference rejected the motion that 30% of agricultural land should be organic by 2010. Do you agree with them? This is one of those questions that is, for some of us, rather tricky at first glance. Voting YES means that you agree that the delegates were right and you share their anti-organic stance. Voting NO means that you think that it would be a good thing for 30% of agricultural land to be farmed "organically" by 2008. You can add your vote here. When our vote was cast the poll stood at 69% anti organic and 30% pro... Viewing FWi pages now requires registration.

Jan 14 ~ Consultation on implementation of powers in Animal Health Bill Consultation

"This paper seeks your comments on the practical operation of new disease control powers provided in the Animal Health Bill." ......" We are committed to implementing the provisions openly and transparently....."DEFRA asks for views to be submitted no later than 15 March 2002...." The consultation paper does NOT apply to the whole bill, it appears, only to
1) Implementing new foot and mouth (FMD) slaughter powers;
2) Operating the adjusted compensation scheme for Infected Premises .
It is therefore possible for DEFRA to make remarks such as:
15. The FMD slaughter measures apply only to those animals that are susceptible to FMD. Animals like dogs, cats and horses are not included in these powers and there is no reason why they should be - as if that clause should reassure those whose fears about the bill's draconian powers are focussed mainly on companion animals - but this reassurance applies only to the FMD control provisions. The Bill does provide for the powers it contains to be extended to pets and animals of any species if the government so desires. To say that " this could only be done with the approval of both Houses of Parliament" is surely not a good enough reason for the bill to be thought acceptable in all its provisions now even by those whose only concern is for pet animals.

Jan 14 ~ The Northumberland Inquiry, to be led by Professor Michael Dower, has been told by Lord Whitty that DEFRA will not take an active part but will "reply to written questions"

...(as they did, it will be remembered, in Devon - in the end and after numerous reminders) staff should not be diverted from their "prime task" of eradicating the disease from the county said Lord Whitty. More understandable is the absence of the Army. Brigadier Andrew Farquhar says that the Army is "constrained by guidelines" when military personnel gave evidence to inquiries. The area is still considered 'at risk' . Prof Dower is a former director general of the Countryside Commission and, perhaps significantly, a lecturer in European rural development at the University of Gloucestershire.

Jan 14 ~ Reading how Mr Blair has promised "speedy improvements in rail services" declaring his complete confidence in Stephen Byers, (The Times)

we are irresistibly reminded of The Saturday Essay with Frederick Forsythe An extract from the "New Bible" ...."Oh ye of little faith...hast thou no eyes to see my greatness? Canst thou not see that I am now pivotal? That everything I say is pivotal? That everything I do is pivotal? And that that is why I fly round and round the world.......?" Listen to the Reading from the little known Book of Tone. We can now expect Mr Blair's sorting outof the Rail chaos to be up there with the government priorities of sorting out Education and Health... The reassurance intended by this may be limited in its effect. We remember similar reassurances when the Prime Minister took personal control of the foot and mouth crisis just before the Election.

Jan 13 ~.... the Commission has failed to provide, as a component part of its Agenda 2000 analysis, any assessment of the probable benefits to consumers from its reform proposals

This extract comes from a Select Committee on Agriculture Inquiry into the EU Commission's Agenda 2000 and, although written in Februrary 1998, still seems particularly relevant today. The Committee wrote: We nevertheless find it unacceptable that the Commission has failed to provide, as a component part of its Agenda 2000 analysis, any assessment of the probable benefits to consumers from its reform proposals. We also find the Commission's silence on this subject mystifying, as the likely benefits to consumers constitute one of the strongest arguments in favour of the direction of CAP reform advocated by the Commission. We urge the Government to ensure that the consumer interest is kept high on the agenda during the forthcoming negotiations over CAP reform.

Jan 12 ~ "The programme 'Farming Today this week', (Jan 12) which seems to be wheeled out for disseminating propaganda about farming these days, was easing the way for the licensing of farms."

A Devon farmer writes to us today about the programme, on which no one challenged the concept of farms being licensed. David Hill (NFU) instead of challenging the idea behind all this was merely concerned about who would pay for licensing inspections while the RSPCA, whose executive has maintained something of a deafening silence over the FMD, seemed to see nothing bizarre in this notion either. The farmer continues, " even better would be to licence where people live. After all there are lots of householders who are bad neighbours, don't control their children properly, keep hamsters and guinea pigs in tiny insanitary cages, don't mow their front lawns and so on. .....Licensing residency would enable the government to control and eradicate that sort of thing..."
What on earth is being concocted? Will farms have to prove that they can produce an income which complies with employment legislation in order to be licensed? Will it then be made illegal to keep a milking goat or a house cow for fun? What about the 'cottager's pig'? Horses? Dogs? Quail? Carp? Will it be made illegal to grow fruit and vegetables and sell the surplus from local markets?

Jan 12 ~ More Millions for Government Research

We read this morning that the government is setting up a new "horizon scanning" project which will attempt to prevent the next BSE or foot and mouth disease crises by bringing together the ideas of scientists, experts and groups outside Government. (Telegraph) If its first programme is successful, funding will be increased to up to ten million pounds a year. The idea apparently is to end the public perception that Government science was conducted within a "closed circle" of establishment experts and shrouded in secrecy. "We wish to draw in all points of view and I'm hopeful that a wide range of stakeholders and external scientists will become involved," (Lord Whitty) How interesting that the government is aware enough of this public perception to throw money at it; its usual course of trying to make things better. The ten million pounds is unlikely to be classified as "taxpayers"money however. The enormous influence wielded by cronyism is hardly going to be dented by this new initiative at the University of Sussex though. The "closed circle" that led to such disasters as the FMD policy and now the Animal Health amendment Bill is itself driven by an ever greater hunger for research funds and influence and has made itself enormously powerful.

Jan 12 ~ "...casts serious doubts on government scientists' work" ..extract from a briefing note in the House of Lords

"One can't help feeling that this part of the Bill was written in the certain expectation that BSE will be found in sheep - an odd way to carry out scientific experimentation. The subsequent debacle has undermined the argument and has cast serious doubts on government scientists' work in general. The hysteria about TSE seems incomprehensible in any case. Scrapie is not transferable to other species and even BSE has not been proved to cause human disease...."

Jan 11 ~ Readers may be interested in the House of Commons Library Research paper on the Animal Health bill by Christopher Barclay. It takes some moments to load but can be accessed here

EXTRACT: (On Legality of the Contiguous Cull) "Perhaps surprisingly, however, the Act [i.e.of 1981 that this bill seeks to amend] does not provide any general justification for the compulsory slaughter of animals that are not diseased on neighbouring farms. yet the contiguous cull was a major part of the Government strategy for handling FMD. The logic is simple. By the time you detect signs of the disease in one farm, it may have already spread to the next one. A contiguous cull can establish a firebreak to prevent the disease spreading yet further. Similar methods are used for controlling bovine TB by slaughtering badgers." This paragraph alone is astonishingly misleading. The logic may be "simple" but it is not right. Experts in FMD said from the start that a "firebreak" was nonsensical since the strain of the virus of the 2001 UK outbreak is not spread by airborne means. That the contiguous cull was illegal and that this bill seeks to impose a retrospective legality on measures that were unnecessary would also appear to be evident from a reading of this paper.

Jan 11 ~ "You ask specifically about the position of pets and Sanctuary animals,and whether they will be exempt from the new powers.

We recognise there are concerns about how these powers will be used in relation to particular groups of animals. The Government cannot give a blanket exception to any category of susceptible animal, as there may be occasions where these animals need to be culled to control the spread of disease...." A paragraph from a letter from Defra about the Animal Health bill that will be of concern to all owners of pets who have, up to now, assumed that the bill was aimed only at the control of foot-and-mouth or scrapie.

Jan 11 ~ FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE: LESSONS LEARNED INQUIRY Press Release just received

An invitation has been also been sent (here) to a Public Meeting arranged for 23 January in the Charter Hall in Okehampton. Print out the form or email for tickets. Places are limited to 200 and are by ticket only.

Jan 11 ~ We are grateful to Brent in Canada for many links to news items - and now we are grateful too for this quotation. It sheds some light on the state of Britain in 2002...

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government...[Eventually], the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public Treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy. . . The world's greatest civilizations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from great courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again to bondage."--Andrew Tyler Fraser

Jan 11~ "Tens of thousands of people kill themselves each year by smoking, over-eating and over-drinking, but that's their own choice - being killed by something you have no control over is a different matter. That is why we have the FSA,

which feels it must be seen to be doing something. Openness, transparency, meetings held in public, research into food safety, findings published immediately - it's all there. Too much so in the case of yesterday's report. Wouldn't it be better use of time and money to find out if a disease exists in a species before warning of the hypothetical consequences? " Read Fordyce Maxwell in today's Scotsman.

Jan 10 ~"That the British farmer badly needs some form of encouragement after the publicity given to problems such as BSE, foot-andmouth, pesticides and GM foods is clear.

The publicity has obscured the fact that UK safety standards, both for domestic and imported food, are among the highest in the world. Yet in spite of its problems UK farming remains one of our few "basic industries" and it would be appalling to see it go the same way as the former basic industries such as coal mining, which once employed 250,000, shipbuilding and steel making. " See the article from Hoovers.com

Jan 9 ~ "Throughout the FMD epidemic and in so many other areas the government has demonstrated that it will not let the truth stand in the way of ignorance and prejudice. Bad news can be buried among even worse news.

Inconvenient good news can be ignored or cynically spun to present it in a less flattering light. If a flimsy defence allows diseases to cross the channel, if by some good chance it has not already done so, the political reaction will not be to improve the defences or eliminate the diseases it will be to eliminate the carriers of that disease...." So said Lord Williamson in the The Woolridge Memorial Lecture in December. Well worth reading. First the farm animals then the companion animals....

Jan 9 ~ Safeway brings in a Farmers' Charter.

Even as Tesco's seem to be locked in combat with David Handley's Farmers for Action union, Safeway - one of the big four - has decided to insist that big processors who deal with farmers must observe the principles of a new code of trading practice. Calling it the Farmers' Charter, Safeway says it will plug a "major loophole" and offer farmers greater protection. Unlike the voluntary code, introduced last year, which does not automatically apply to meat, milk and bread processing firms who deal with farmers, Safeway's Farmers' Charter will make it a requirement for all its suppliers.

Jan 9 ~ Ben Gill seems set for re-election to the NFU

From Farmers Weekly report
BEN GILL looks set to be re-elected for another two-year term as president of the National Farmers' Union at the organisations' AGM in February. The deadline for nominations for the positions of NFU president, deputy president, vice president and treasurer passed on Tuesday (8 January). Mr Gill has been nominated for the role of president, along with the current deputy president Tim Bennett and vice-president Michael Paske. But both Mr Bennet and Mr Paske have said they will not challenge for the leadership, leaving the path open for Mr Gill to be returned to office for the third time.

Jan 9 ~The "sheer blithering incompetence, arrogance and heavy handedness" of DEFRA is mirrored by the recent behaviour of our Intelligence Services

Richard suggests we read about the m.v. Nisha which these idiots thought was, or decided to portray as a terrorist ship. Richard has scanned two recent articles from Lloyds List about the MV Nisha, seized off the south coast of England on December 22nd. "....even if the authorities were convinced that the Nisha was a potential threat, there were many less extravagant counter steps that could have been taken. In this case the owner was a British subsidiary of an Indian public company, the supplier of the cargo was the Mauritius Sugar Syndicate and the receiver was the household name of Tate & Lyle. All were authorised by contract to survey the ship before any cargo was loaded.......any investigation through a few telephone calls in London should have been sufficient to reduce the doubts."
We reported at the time Archive of this page for Dec 22 " We read today that the supposed terror ship Nasha, seized in international waters by Royal Navy commandos yesterday, seems not to be a terror ship after all. A team of officers trained to search vessels, helped by military experts with specialised equipment for detecting explosives have not found anything suspicious on board. Its owners, the Great Eastern Shipping Company, have cooperated fully." We have seen no headlines in any of the papers whose reporting of the seizure of the ship were so triumphant to explain that the ship, actually carrying 26,000 tonnes of raw sugar, had been given a clean bill of health by the Royal Navy. The Great Eastern Shipping Company, the ship's owners, has severely criticised the UK's intelligence services and the heavy- handed way in which the crew of the Nisha was treated, despite claims that they were willing to co-operate....... It is perhaps proper to end with Kant. He argued that it is not what we know that matters but how we put together what we know. The Nisha incident is one of the saddest tragedies of unnecessary ignorance. We could have done much better. " We would echo this sentiment - but we would be thinking too of the handling of FMD and of the Animal Health amendment Bill - another sledgehammer with which an imaginary nut is to be broken.

Jan 8 ~ " I'm afraid it sounds to me as though Downing Street, like the BBC, has suddenly become infested with managementitis

- a natural home for theorists, consultants, cronies, creeps, meddlers and ambitious "blue skies thinkers", who are more likely to do harm than good. ..." Opinion in the Telegraph today

Jan 8 ~ The Rio Summit was ten years ago. While scientists know more and more about less and less and the government bureaucrats try to regulate every area of our lives, a third of the biological wealth of the Natural World has been lost.

"There were many fine achievements on paper at Rio but what has happened on the ground since Rio is all too little," said independent conservation scientist Dr Norman Myers. "And while the environmental ou