UPDATE - Foot-and-mouth threatens UK rural life - report
Date: 30-Aug-01
Country: UK
Author: Elizabeth Piper
The Countryside Agency said a long-running battle against the highly infectious livestock disease had forced businesses to close, prompted young people to leave rural homes and could change the look of valleys and hills for generations.
In a comprehensive report on the effects of foot-and-mouth, which struck in late February, the agency said the outbreak could cost the economy four billion pounds ($5.81 billion).
"Foot-and-mouth disease has had a profound impact on rural areas, created distress and difficulty for many, threatening livelihoods and the very fabric of rural life," Ewen Cameron, chairman of the Countryside Agency, said in a statement.
"Government and many others acted quickly to provide some immediate relief but the full effect of the way the disease has impacted will not be known for some time. There will be more bankruptcies, fewer jobs and rural communities will suffer for years to come."
Almost 2,000 farms have been confirmed with foot-and-mouth since the disease first struck and more than 3.7 million livestock have been slaughtered to combat it.
The number of cases has dwindled, but fresh outbreaks in northern England have prompted scientists and vets to fear that the disease could linger for months.
TOURISM LOSES MOST
The report said tourism, a 64 billion pound a year industry, had been worst hit by the epidemic, and combined with farmers scaling down or closing operations, young people had been forced to search for jobs in cities and towns.
"In the areas hardest hit...it's a double blow - agriculture was already in recession and many households depended on rural tourism and its suppliers," Cameron said.
The UK government has launched three independent inquiries into the epidemic, and the chairman of a policy commission charged with looking at the "future of farming and food" said the group would meet next month and report by the New Year.
"The work of the commission is vitally important to the future of farming, food and the whole rural economy," the commission chairman, Sir Don Curry, said.
"It's a tight timescale, but that will force us to focus on the key issues - there'll be no time for side-tracks."
Farmers and rural groups have attacked the government for failing to open a public inquiry into the crisis, similar to the two-and-a-half year probe on mad cow disease. The British Association for Shooting and Conservation, along with the National Farmers Union and other groups renewed calls for guarantees that all findings will be made public.
"It is time the government had the courage to establish a proper inquiry which will have legal authority to gather evidence and which will report back to the people of this country," the association said.