Richard Betton, 46, has been farming since 1976 and has 300 Swaledale sheep and 30 Angus cows, at Harwood-in-Teesdale. A first generation farmer and father of four, he is a member of Teesdale District Council, former county chairman for the National Farmers' Union in County Durham and the North Riding, and vice-chairman of the Less Favoured Areas Committee, which represents hill farmers. He is also a member of MAFF Hill Farmers' Advisory Committee.

IN recent years, disaster after disaster has struck the farming industry. BSE destroyed our export market for beef and undermined confidence in lamb. Salmonella finished many egg producers and classical swine fever the pig sector. Health scares and government over-regulation, combined with the recent continual wet weather, have combined in a catastrophic cocktail from which UK agriculture was finding it difficult to recover.

The last straw for many farmers is the current outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

We have seen our incomes and the capital value of our assets plummet over the last few years. The average age of farmers in England is more than 56 and the next generation is turning away from the industry in droves. Seeing their parents struggle against the elements, day in day out, for a pittance - the social chapter does not apply to farmers and the self-employed - has made many realise that there is a much easier way to make a living with the added bonus of weekends off and paid holidays.

My eldest son often tells me to pack up farming and get a real job. Farming, especially in the hills, is still a very physically demanding job: nobody has yet devised a way of rebuilding dry stone walls or trimming ewes' feet with a machine.

For many farmers, the daily jobs become increasingly difficult with age and more so when they know that they may well be the last generation of their family to farm their holding.

For most farmers, farming is not just a means of earning a living, but a whole way of life: they live, eat and drink farming because it is all that they have ever wanted to do.

They usually can talk of little else when they go out for a drink, as farming, and farm-related topics, are all that they are really interested in.

The recent fall in incomes has been especially hard as most farmers are deeply in love with their farms, although they would never admit it, and they yearn to make their farm the best in the area. Farmers are good spenders when times are good and use their surplus profits to boost the local rural economy by investing in farm improvements.

A collapse in farm profitability hits far more than farmers' pockets, and affects the whole rural economy.

Two weeks ago, the picture was rather different: sheep prices were improving, store cattle trade was buoyant and the experts were predicting a general rise in world market prices for most major commodities.

For the first time in several years, we could look forward to producing food and selling it for more than the cost of production.

The spring was beginning to return to many farmers' steps after the traumas of the backend sales. The price my breeding ewes fetched, aided by a late turn in the auction mart ballot, was 75 per cent less than at the autumn sales two years before.

Now we have foot-and-mouth, the ultimate dread of all livestock farmers, seemingly running riot and breaking out all over the country.

Yesterday, a case was confirmed by the Ministry of Agriculture at Wolsingham in Weardale - much too close for comfort. All the farming community will be spending the next few days waiting with baited breath to see if the prompt action of the farmer/haulier and the Ministry vets has managed to contain the outbreak.

The big outbreak of 1967 never reached as far as Teesdale. We do not know how fast it would travel if it got onto the fells. The western half of County Durham is almost exclusively all grassland livestock farming. There are no arable crop breaks to stop the spread. The worst case scenario is that the virus could sweep right across the dales, causing the destruction of every single sheep, cow and beast in the area.

I have farmed in Teesdale for nearly 20 years and to see the destruction of my flock and the herd of pedigree cattle I have built up is almost too hard to contemplate.

I seriously do not know whether I would have the heart to start all over again, even if I could afford to.

The Government compensates at full market price for all stock slaughtered under its control measures, but it is unlikely to be sufficient to live off until the all-clear is given to farmers to restock, let alone be sufficient to buy the more expensive stock available in a buyers' market.

The same is probably true for most of my neighbours. Foot-and-mouth could well be the death knell for many of the remote upland communities and the farmers they support.

Upper Teesdale, possibly all of Teesdale, could revert to that "wilderness" so beloved by environmentalist, Prof David Bellamy.

But Prof Bellamy's wilderness is trimmed and managed by four-legged "lawnmowers" - cattle and sheep. The new wilderness, without farmers and their stock, would be a tangle of brambles and scrub, both unattractive and impenetrable.

I sincerely hope that it does not come to this extreme. The bloody-minded independence and stubbornness of the dales farmers has been their greatest strength in the past and may well be their saving grace in the future.

If livestock farming is to survive we need the help of the public and Government.

However nice the weather, do not go for a walk in the countryside. If you do, you could be responsible for not just the further mass destruction of livestock, but for the destruction of yet another farmer's means of livelihood.