Originally from: Mary Critchley
                        
Farmers Weekly seems to have been to a different meeting. ....

Virus probe visits Ulverston

By Craig Wilson in Cumbria

CUMBRIAN farmers at a public meeting in Ulverston have attacked the government's handling of last year's foot-and-mouth epidemic.

Feelings ran high at the event attended by around 40 people on Tuesday evening (14 May) as part of the Cumbrian inquiry into the outbreak.

Charlotte Thexton, of Sayles Farm, Lowick Bridge, said she had challenged a request to cull their sheep, but was pressured to give into the slaughter.

She said: "We were told we could only delay it a few days and legal steps would be taken to enforce the slaughter.

"It was point blank: 'You're being slaughtered. Don't fight the government because we will win'."

She told the inquiry that an official disinfectant team was "useless" and she and her husband had had to clean the farm themselves after the cull.

She was also scathing at the lack of information from the Ministry of Agriculture, now the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

"I think Defra would have been better named MI5," she said. "Communication was non-existent. You couldn't get any information out of them."

Josephine Baxter, who farms at Blawith, said she received a follow-up letter from Defra after stock belonging to another farmer were culled on their land.

"Its first line was 'owing to foot-and-mouth on your farm, all your stock have been culled'. I mean, did somebody think we'd gone to sleep and missed it?"

Vet Rick Brown, who worked at Defra's field office in Broughton, said there was enormous pressure to kill stock to try and get on top of the outbreak.

"The view was that it didn't get under control because they weren't killing quickly enough," he said. "It was pressure, pressure, pressure to kill quickly."

Inquiry chairman Phil Thomas asked the audience what could be done to restore their confidence in Defra and government officials.

Told that Defra simply did not understand farming, he said he wouldn't disagree and added that there were very few agriculturalists in the department.

Professor Thomas said farmers may be able to access funding from sources such as the Rural Action Zone scheme to secure their livelihoods.

But he stressed that they needed to grasp the opportunity themselves and not wait for the government to sort out the problems of agriculture.

The inquiry continues with two further public meetings this week, followed by another four-day hearing in Carlisle from 28–31 May.

A final report is expected to be made to Cumbria County Council on 25 July.

Mary