Farming: Foot and mouth outbreak a warning from history on animal welfare standards

Although it is 20 years ago, I still remember thinking I was going in the wrong direction. What was I doing? I was going to Washington to the United States of America Department of Agriculture conference.

The flight was unremarkable but the feeling of heading in the wrong direction intensified when I landed, and information came through from the UK on the discovery of foot and mouth disease in the North of England.

I wondered about just getting back on board the plane thus making one of the shortest visits ever to the good old US of A but wiser counsel prevailed when it was pointed out that the epidemic would continue along its course regardless of where I was based.

And so, I attended a grandiose event with agricultural experts from all 50 States and I learned about the state of the market for cotton, the latest pests attacking the US tobacco crop and a million other things with little relevance to UK agriculture.

There was, to be honest, some agricultural politics but they were largely contained in a speech by the US Minister of Agriculture, with a clear focus on the removal of trade barriers. There was no mention of animal welfare or concerns about health standards.

All the time the delegates were talking, I was following the latest news on the spread of foot and mouth back home and although this month marks the 20th anniversary of that epidemic, the news and the images remain etched in my memory.

Back home, I was soon reporting on the biggest disaster for the British livestock industry where up to eight million animals were slaughtered in attempts to control the disease. The disease had quickly spread through livestock markets into South Scotland and right down the West side of England.

Every day brought more press conferences and tales of valued livestock bloodlines being lost, not to mention harrowing personal tales.

Although social media was not as virulent as it is today, it brought a raft of rumours and suggestions of dirty deeds. Did I know the Government had planned it and had secretly been buying up old railway sleepers to help build the funeral pyres for infected livestock? Did I know farmer X had helped transmit the disease so he could cash in on the compensation money being paid by the Government?

All such spurious tales I followed up but almost all proved false as later confirmed by official enquiries.

The press were invited to Carlisle which was the hot spot for the plague and there we met Brigadier Alex Birtwhistle, the army officer in charge of controlling the disease in that part of the world. We questioned him about his chain of command.

“Simple,” he replied. “I speak to the Prime Minister (Tony Blair) and he speaks to me;” there was no room for mixed messages.

That same visit took us to the former airfield at Great Orton, not far from Carlisle, where massive bulldozers carved out deep burial pits which were then filled by lorry loads of carcases. To prevent the dead animals filling up with gas and popping out of the thinly covered graves, massive spud lugged Compactors scrunched the bodies into a bloody mince.

Today there is little evidence of the carnage of those days apart from a memorial stone shaped like a tear drop marking the last resting place of around half a million animals.

Gradually the epidemic passed, and people wondered what lessons had been learned from a plague that had cost the country an estimated £8 billion.

There was, accompanied by much moaning and groaning, a tightening up on the movement of animals in the countryside, and that has been a good thing.

What has been more worrying are the siren voices now calling for trade deals with any country that will deal with us. Hardly a day goes by but there is some politician trumpeting the prospects of a new trade deal. Last week Brazil. Before that, Pacific Rim countries.

We have been told not to worry: The Trade and Agriculture Commission will ensure there is no slippage from our previous health standards, even if it is only allowed to do so after the deal is done and even if they have no power to stop or do anything about it.

I may have been going in the wrong direction 20 years ago. I hope this country is not hell bent on careering down a path where standards fall.