FARMERS' leaders claimed last night that a Government clampdown on animal movements could send the farming industry spiralling into a fresh crisis.

A total ban on animal movements was imposed in a 6,100 square mile "red box" zone covering the North-East, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria on Wednesday.

But farmers say they face a bleak year ahead as they cannot buy new stocks of cattle and sheep in the annual autumn markets, due to start this month.

Instead, they will have to leave sheep to perish on the hills as temperatures drop.

Alistair Layfield, from Tanners Hall Farm, near Stanley Crook, County Durham, had been waiting to restock this autumn after his livestock were slaughtered in March.

He said: "We were just waiting to have the farm signed off, to say the farm is cleansed and disinfected, but there's no veterinary staff to do that. Once we got signed off we were going to restock, but now there's no markets. So, like a lot of people, we're in limbo.

"It is really bad to stop people trading livestock this time of year. It is a wonder the Government has got away with it without people kicking up a fuss.

"The farmers need financial assistance. It is not as if we were making money beforehand."

Rob Simpson, NFU spokesman for Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland, said the industry is heading for further turmoil. He said the measures will even affect areas that have not experienced foot-and-mouth, by preventing farmers from across Northern England buying animals to rear for slaughter.

He said: "Farmers do not know which way to turn. Every time there is a glimmer of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel, their hopes are dashed by a further disease outbreak and further restrictions on farming activities.

"These latest movement restrictions will leave livestock farmers absolutely devastated.

"Clearly, everyone's top priority is to eradicate the disease as quickly as possible, which will enable farming activities to return to a semblance of normality. But if we are to have any livestock farmers left in northern England after we are finally rid of this pestilence, we must find a way of supporting them through what is unquestionably the worst farming crisis in living memory."

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