Hear All Sides

THE foot-and-mouth crisis is just the latest turn in the downward spiral of British agriculture. It is a terrible tragedy for the farming community, but it has had an impact way beyond farming, resulting in losses to tourism of £200m per week.

Out of the adversity of the foot-and-mouth disaster, we must identify opportunities for change - not just for farming, but for the countryside as a whole.

If we simply encourage farmers to continue as before, we will miss a major opportunity to put agriculture on a more sustainable footing for the long-term benefit of farmers, rural communities and the environment.

In North-East England, as elsewhere in the UK, birds such as the skylark, linnet, song thrush, lapwing and tree sparrow, and other wildlife, such as the common blue butterfly, are being lost from the countryside at an alarming rate, while the number of people working in farming also continues to plummet.

Much more of the taxpayers' £3.5bn annual spend on agriculture needs to be directed towards environmentally-friendly farming and schemes which provide help for farmers to diversify their businesses.

Good food, a healthy environment and vibrant rural communities are what we all want. It's time that Government policy reflected our wishes.- Graham Wynne, Chief Executive, RSPB.

I BEG you to do all you can to persuade the Government to cease its slaughter policy to control foot-and-mouth.

It is patently obvious the disease cannot be controlled in this way.

Eminent scientists tell us the majority of infected animals would recover, aided by the efficient care of our farmers and modern drugs.

The slaughter policy has caused the death of over a million animals, the great majority healthy and well, and thousands in-lamb or in-calf. Maff officials and vehicles collecting slaughtered animals, both infected and uninfected, trail the disease all over the country. Birds, wildlife and the wind are known to transmit the virus so it is obvious that no measures ordered or executed by the Government can or will control it.

We are viewed by the world as a barbaric, cruel and medieval nation.

Our country has completely lost credibility with millions of people, and rightly so.

How can we dare to criticise other countries on human rights issues when we are seen to treat innocent animals in such an appalling manner, simply for contracting a virus for which there is not only a cure, but a vaccine? - J Barribal, Duns.

IN view of the fact that the killing and burning is taking place of all livestock within a two-mile radius of an infected farm, don't you think it is time that only those animals that are actually showing symptoms of foot-and-mouth disease are destroyed?

Animals not showing any symptoms should be put in quarantine and vaccinated against the disease. This would greatly reduce the amount of livestock to be destroyed and therefore speed up the process of burning those animals showing actual symptoms.

The quarantined livestock, after vaccination, can be inspected on a regular basis. If this process was adopted, there may be no need to destroy the vast quantities of healthy animals. - Derek Mitchell, Hartlepool.

IT is time that the Government told the truth about the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

The strain of the virus, Pan-Asiatic "O" Type, is not active in any other part of the world and could only have come from a Government laboratory, where it is used in experiments to develop a vaccine.

This virus is similar to the polio virus and it is possible for it to revert to its live state and this could have been given to test animals.

A sample of foot-and-mouth virus went "missing" from a top secret government laboratory two months before the start of the outbreak. By a strange coincidence, the Government started inquiring about the availability of timber to incinerate animals in a foot-and-mouth outbreak during the period between the loss of the sample and the first reported case.

I leave you to decide whether the Government was lying when it said that the timing of the inquiries about timber for fires was just a coincidence or whether the Government was lying when it said that had "no reliable" information to suggest that the outbreak was linked to the "missing" virus sample, or whether the Government was just plain incompetent in not imposing restrictions as soon as the virus sample went "missing". - RW Alexander, Darlington.

HARRY Mead's article, We must vaccinate now, (Echo, Apr 11) gives the background so succinctly and of course, while Nick Brown continues to spout "it's under control", there is no need to vaccinate anyway. So there is nothing to worry about.

Not quite correct. Mr Brown is terrified of the prospect of vaccination, simply because we do not have sufficient vaccine available.

Only four sites in Europe are permitted to manufacture vaccines, one Dutch, one French, one German and our own Animal Health Institute in Pirbright.

The Dutch and Germans hold a minimum of one million vaccines and the French company, Merial, has five million. We hold 200,000 doses and may have access to one million through the international vaccine bank.

Sounds very good, except that we currently have 11 million cattle and new vaccine takes weeks to produce.

Perhaps the Germans, Dutch and French will help us out. After all, we gave them the disease in the first place.

No, Mr Brown is correct, negative perception vaccination is out of the question until FMD runs riot through our dairy herd and the milkman stops delivery to No 10. - J Barron, Darlington.

I AM like a lot of the silent and helpless majority and am with Harry Mead (Echo, Apr 11) all the way.

What sort of society are we living in today where life to our fellow creatures has no value, where innocent and healthy animals are being wantonly destroyed?

Farmers are afraid to speak up against such fanatical, almost panicking orders. Where all the animal rights militants now? Yet they are still terrorising animal laboratories.

There will be no livestock to vaccinate if the Government waits any longer. Yet, it insists on filling little children with a cocktail of vaccinations.

None of the cruelty to animals, especially farm ones, makes sense. If we get a recession later on because of this criminal waste, possibly of the tourist trade, the Government only has itself to blame for repeatedly showing ghoulish news pictures of mass slaughter and burials - going into repeated details on every news bulletin with no emotion shown.

When international news is shown about this subject it will be a real turn off - it already is. - J Lawler, Newton Aycliffe.

THE effects of foot-and-mouth disease are dreadful and its economic consequences spread far wider than the farming community. Despite this, there is a lot of hypocrisy around.

Farmers and the public claim to be shocked at the killing of day-old lambs, yet these same farmers happily send them long distances to market or even overseas to be slaughtered when they are just a few weeks older.

Often, these are the same farmers who will shoot day-old calves because they have no use and who previously consigned them to the misery of continental veal crates.

All farmed animals are bred for slaughter and no other reason - 900 million of them every year. The irony is that a quick death on the farm because of foot-and-mouth is almost certainly preferable to days of transportation, the brutality of livestock markets and dealers and the terror and inhumane slaughter in abattoirs.

People should ask themselves what it is that upsets them? The slaughter of lambs is intolerable, but it won't stop when foot-and-mouth does. Pigs, sheep, cattle and poultry will still face the terror of the slaughter house. - DS Noble, Darlington.