Jiglu: Farmtalking: Discussion: Fwd: Farmers to protest over illegal meat imports

Originally from: Molly Maxwell

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Originally from: "Ananova" <533...>
To: Molly Maxwell <...>
Subject: Farmers to protest over illegal meat imports – Ananova Alerting Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 12:07:35 GMT

Farmers are to stage protests at ferry ports over illegal meat imports, suspected of causing the foot-and-mouth crisis.

Groups will be demonstrating throughout Devon, claiming the government is failing to stop the unlawful trade.

They will be handing out leaflets to car ferry passengers, explaining the disease risk posed by illegally imported meat and plant material.

They are seeking support in pressurising the government to tighten restrictions.

The south-west protests are part of a nationwide demonstration by NFU members.

The events will coincide with the presentation of a petition to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs at the Labour party conference in Brighton.

The NFU's south-west regional director, Anthony Gibson, says: "Farmers are fed up to the back teeth with being lectured by politicians on biosecurity, while all the time the nation's biosecurity is being fatally compromised by the government's own failure to police illegal imports of meat.

"The first and most obvious lesson of the Foot and Mouth outbreaks is that we must minimise the risk of disease being imported.

"This could have been acted upon months ago, instead of which nothing has been done, and we are as much at risk now as when FMD arrived here in January," he adds.

*Foot-and-mouth story sent by Ananova

See this story on the web at http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_410657.html

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