THE export ban on live animals and meat will cost the British meat industry £8m a week in lost sales.

The Meat and Livestock Commission supports all the measures taken by the government but says it is vital to contain and eradicate foot-and-mouth as soon as possible.

"Only by doing this can we move forward and retain our hard-won export markets and rebuild our individual farm and meat businesses," said Mr Gwyn Howells, MLC director general.

Last year's exports included: 97,000 live pigs worth £9.4m; 202,000 tonnes of pork worth £139m; 9,000 tonnes of bacon worth £21m; and 8,400 tonnes of other processed products worth £14m.

Also exported were: 764,000 live sheep worth £32m; 94,000 tonnes of sheep meat worth £180m; and 500 tonnes of beef valued at £5m.

The government has announced that it will apply to Europe for all the £152m available "agrimoney" compensation for beef, sheep and dairy farmers.

The NFU has campaigned long, hard and in vain for this aid, designed to compensate farmers for the impact of the strong pound, but Mr Gill's renewed plea at this week's emergency talks with the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, and Agriculture Minister, Mr Nick Brown, bore fruit.

Mr Brown also said a further £16m would be taken from future budgets of the pig industry restructuring scheme for those who needed help now.

Mr Gill welcomed Mr Brown's statement that he wished to begin moving animals, where applicable, under strict licences. The NFU will help draw up the plans.

Looking ahead to next week's Budget, Mr Gill called on the Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown, to be especially sensitive to the farming community and not to hit anxious farmers with further tax burdens.

The NFU says a planned pesticides tax and the recently-introduced climate change levy will hit farmers' pockets hard while failing environmental objectives.

It has been in long negotiations with the government on alternative voluntary measures to the pesticides tax, claiming these will deliver greater environmental benefits, and also wants a complete exemption from the climate change levy for agriculture and horticulture, in common with other EU members.

High fuel taxes and an aggregates tax, which increases the cost of quarried stone used to build farm tracks, will also take their toll.

The union would like to see capital allowances for plant and machinery as well as a tax scheme to enable farmers to write off new purchases of milk quota over seven years.

"Farmers are on the edge at the moment - scared, frustrated and anxious," said Mr Gill. "Anything the Chancellor announces next week which adds to their burden could tip them over the edge."

Swift and effective suppport from the government is needed by Northern farmers, say rural business advisers.

Mr John McGrother, the Institute of Chartered Accountants' farming group's Northern representative, said: "The promise of full compensation to farmers who have animals slaughtered will do little to cushion the blow, particularly to those who are in the restriction zones and unable to sell stock.

"We hope the Inland Revenue will extend the concession, offered during the previous outbreak in 1967-68, that interest arising from foot-and-mouth compensation will be treated as farm income."

Mr McGrother, a partner in Jewitts, Stockton, said that, even in communities far away from confirmed outbreaks, people were worried about where the disease would strike next.

"I have spoken to a couple who run a caravan site and have a milk round," he said. "If their land becomes part of an exclusion zone, their business will be severely affected, even though they have no livestock."

ICA members, too, have asked the Chancellor to take the plight of the farming sector into account in the Budget.

Those farmers actually hit by foot-and-mouth have been advised to catalogue all subsequent costs and expenses as they occur.

Mr Peter Bramwell, partner at King, Hope and Co, chartered accountants of Darlington, said it was vital to keep a note of financial losses in advance of claims for compensation.

The case for compensation would be much stronger if farmers could produce their notes made at the time, rather than in retrospect.

"This is a positive measure farmers can take now to secure help in the future," he said.