ANGRY farmers and insurers in the region have criticised Government proposals to force them to insure against foot-and-mouth disease.

For some North-East farmers, still reeling from the outbreak, the expensive insurance could spell financial ruin.

At the same time, agricultural insurers say they could not take the risk of covering every farmer in the UK so soon after the outbreak.

Gerard Salvin, director of the farm division of Lycetts Insurance, based in Newcastle, said: "There are one or two insurers coming back into the livestock market, but if the Government thinks that everyone is to turn around and insure, I think that the insurance industry would refuse.

"I think everyone wants to see the Government tighten sanctions against illegal imports of meat coming into the country. Until we see that, why should farmers basically have to insure against Government policy?"

He said that the cost of insurance against foot-and-mouth was high - a farmer with £100,000 worth of livestock would have to pay an annual premium of about £1,000.

The plans have not yet been officially announced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, (Defra), but they are believed to include a requirement for UK farmers to bear the costs of compulsory slaughter for infected animals, either through an industry levy or insurance.

The National Farmers' Union (NFU) described the plans as "totally unjust and unacceptable".

NFU president Ben Gill, who farms at Easingwold, near York, said: "It makes much more sense to overhaul the Government's own disease prevention and surveillance measures, including enforcement of border controls, so UK farmers can be assured that the utmost is done to safeguard their livestock against diseases where compulsory slaughter is needed."

A spokesman for the NFU Mutual insurance company, which insures more than two-thirds of the UK's farmers, said that controls on illegal meat coming into the country were "woefully inadequate".

He said no insurance company would be prepared to take the risk of insuring a large number of farmers, and that the premiums would be "extremely high".

A spokesman for Defra said: "We are examining options for meeting the costs of compulsory slaughter. We have been in close consultation with both the farming and insurance industries to obtain as thorough an examination as possible of the advantages and disadvantages of different options.