A FARMER gave me a friendly ticking off the other day for questioning the slaughter policy to combat the foot-and-mouth outbreak. "There really is no alternative," he insisted.

At this moment in this crisis, perhaps not. But the longer the epidemic goes on, the more the blanket destruction of livestock looks to be not the way. As the toll has mounted, it has become apparent that a tactic which might have been appropriate when farming was structured on a small scale no longer fits a pattern of large flocks and herds, with massive daily movement of animals over long distances.

Apart from producing scenes - those ghastly fire trenches with animals' limbs poking out - that belong to medieval England, too much else is at stake. The entire rural economy faces collapse.

Farming might be, indeed is, the creator and custodian of the countryside that people wish to see and enjoy. But, increasingly, over much of rural Britain, the pursuit of that enjoyment generates more wealth than farming.

We are talking here not just of cafs and hotels which are suffering mightily. Loss of business to, say, a B&B might well mean the postponement of improvements to the premises. That means less work for builders, plumbers, decorators.

In all our national parks, long-term closure of the countryside would spell a disaster as deep, but more widespread, than big industrial shutdown in a "one-horse" town. My wife and I have just cancelled a two-day break in the Yorkshire Dales - staying on a farm, incidentally.

Apart from our B&B cash, we would have spent money on meals and in local shops. All this tourism money goes round and round. But at the end of the foot-and-mouth outbreak, no one will be helping its incidental victims back on their feet.

And what happens next time? Public opinion would simply not accept a repeat of the present response, including the handouts to farmers. So a different policy will have to be adopted. Vaccination looks the only answer.

It's more likely, however, (I say this cynically) that a string of "rendering" plants will be constructed, so that the dead animals can be disposed of away from the public gaze. That would match the kind of Britain we now live in - a Britain where one no longer feels safe on a train or in a hospital, where schools are on short time, our main millennium project was a complete fiasco, and we can't even organise the rebuilding of our principal sporting stadium.

Yes, we are a shambles, and our reaction to foot-and-mouth is part of it. Meanwhile, my main retort to my farmer critic is that I believe my wife and I give the farming industry arguably its most crucial support. Meat eaters both, we've never bought so much as an ounce from a supermarket. Nor, for that matter, have we bought a supermarket loaf of bread or a supermarket egg.

If supermarkets are the behind-the-scenes villain to the foot-and-mouth piece - their requirement for standardised products leading to ever bigger farms and more transport - none of the pressure in that armlock on farmers mentioned by Tony Blair comes from this quarter.

Footnotes to the above:

1. Watched by two broadly-smiling stewards, the broadly-smiling Queen Mum steps on a disinfectant pad at Sandown Park races. Yes, it's a great hoot, this foot-and-mouth - to the devotees of the Sport of Kings.

2. I am surprised to read that the North York Moors National Park is planning a campaign to get people back to the Moors after the epidemic. The national park authority is always complaining, unjustifiably in my view, that the park is overcrowded. If not a method anyone would choose, the foot-and-mouth epidemic, nevertheless, seems highly-effective in reducing the numbers.

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