By Arnold Pennant
Perhaps it is a good thing to have been away so much recently, because it has meant that I have largely missed the ravages of the foot and mouth disease epidemic. It has also meant that you can reflect on it from a distance.
I really do feel for all the livestock farmers who have had to suffer such hardship to their businesses. This degree of sympathy does not extend to DEFRA or any of its bureaucrats who I feel should bear the blame for this catastrophe. It would nice to think that DEFRA bureaucrats should have their salaries surcharged to compensate the farmers, but that is probably wishful thinking whilst sunning yourself on a foreign shore.
After the last epidemic in 2001, the Government and the ridiculous DEFRA should have realised that you should not play around with foot and mouth virus. So why, I ask, do they permit a foreign company to use it within the security of a Government premise?
The other major question which deserves an answer is just what was this foreign company doing with this virus? Was it something to benefit the UK farming industry or were they using this powerful virus to try extract some of its genes for other uses in genetic engineering. Whereas the Government may believe that genetically modified crops have a future in this country, I would be the first to disagree.
It is morally wrong that farmers should have to suffer the financial hardship of movement restrictions at a time when the Government endorses such irresponsible activities at one of its research centres. I know what I would do with Pirbright, and that it is to call in the US Air Force because they like bombing things, but I would make sure that the local school was evacuated first as some US bombs have been known to miss.
Coming a bit closer to home, I was always opposed to any FMD restrictions in Wales, as it was always clear that this was a totally different situation to that which existed during the last outbreak six years ago. As such I think the WAG should be accountable to farmers for the difficulties which they have suffered.
Compensation must be payable in cash because this is what the farmers need to maintain their livelihoods and to look after families. The WAG does not need to give a million pounds to Higgy Cymraeg, but WAG do have a liability to the Welsh farming community. Unfortunately the only farmers who have been adequately compensated have been those farmers in Surrey who have had their livestock slaughtered.
Unfortunately this epidemic of FMD is drifting towards the same unsatisfactory end as the last time in 2001. Whereas the Government can find money to fund foreign companies carrying out dodgy research in Surrey, they do not wish to compensate the farming community. It is, after all, the farmers who have such a responsibility to the overall prosperity of the countryside as a whole, as the Government must soon realise that you cannot maintain a rural economy on tourism alone.
