A CALL for a pilot vaccination policy during the current crisis was made at the launch of the report.

Mr Ewen Cameron, chairman of the Countryside Agency, does not believe the public will tolerate another mass slaughter strategy.

However his call met a mixed response from the NFU. A spokesman said the scale of the outbreak raised fundamental questions about future alternative control strategies.

The NFU had never rejected outright the use of vaccination as part of a control strategy.

"The issue is how and in what circumstances vaccination might be applied," he said. "But we would have to say, at this stage, that we can see no reason, particularly in the middle of a major disease outbreak, to implement vaccination for vaccination's sake as some sort of experiment to 'test' it as a policy.

"Vaccination should be used only if there is clear advice that it would be a better approach and we have not received any new evidence to suggest that it would."

A spokesman for Defra said they would keep open the discussion on vaccination.

The Countryside Agency report stated that, by August 15, there were 1,954 confirmed cases of foot-and-mouth in the UK, with 3,739,000 animals identified for slaughter.

A further 1,402,385 animals were slaughtered under the livestock welfare disposal scheme and 12,593 more were awaiting slaughter under that scheme.

At the peak of the disease, 127,000 farms were subject to infected area restrictions.

The agency estimated that the economic impact on the agricultural, land-based and related sector amounted to a loss of between £400m and £1.2bn of gross domestic product, doubling to £800m to £2.4bn when supply chain effects were added.

Estimates for lost exports range from £310m to £400m in 2001. The agency said that exports of livestock and livestock products in 2000 were worth £555m in terms of farm gate value.

It estimated that foot-and-mouth compensation will total more than £1,107m.

Producers whose livestock was slaughtered had received £948m compensation to August 13. An estimated £242m would be paid under the livestock welfare disposal scheme - £157m of which was paid by August 12.

Other immediate impacts of the disease included the loss of alternative markets such as farm shops and farmers' markets, and loss of income from non-farming incomes such as toursim.

Longer-term effects would include loss of income from livestock sales - "It may take years to rebuild breeding herds on cull farms," said the report - and uncertain market prices and consequently uncertain incomes for livestock farmers.

The UK agricultural supply sector has an annual turnover of £5bn and employs 11,000 people. It, too, has suffered badly.

The agency said problems included lost sales and extended credit to farmers; a possible 10-15pc long-term decline in the demand for animal feed; livestock market closures at a cost of £1.3m a week; lost business for livestock transporters and reduced work for farm contractors; immediate local environmental impacts included a threat to at least 12 of the 55 rare livestock breeds; some impact on biodiversity following overgrazing where livestock could not be moved; some impact of undergrazing; and delays in delivering agri-environment schemes