NB Warmwell.com accepts no advertising and has no financial interest of any kind in veterinary vaccines nor in rapid on-site diagnostic technology.

Plea for the UK's future FMD policy                   (Warmwell's recent article in the Farmers Guardian)             Main FMD (foot and mouth disease) page Updates on Schmallenberg Virus in Europe

February 2nd 2012 ~ Has Monsanto given up hopes of introducing GM crops to Europe?

Daily Mail reports that Monsanto announced that it is closing its wheat growing operation, based in Cambridge and is also seeking to sell off crop-breeding centres in France, Germany and the Czech Republic. Last month, Bayer CropScience also abandoned UK field trials. Just one company, Syngenta, remains actively pursuing GM in the UK.
3 studies for DEFRA showed that pollen contamination would spread far further than previously thought and "feral" growth of weed killer -proof plants from just one crop would persist for years. At the same time, the heavy use of chemicals associated with the crops could wipe out some bird species. Read article

February 1st 2012 ~ "The last 20 years have seen the concentration of the control over seed by a very small number of giant corporations."

Control of food means control of populations. Yesterday's article by Dr Vandana Shiva warns that, since the UN's 1995 Plant Genetic Resources Conference in Leipzig, when it was reported that 75 per cent of all agricultural biodiversity had disappeared because of the introduction of "modern" varieties, the erosion of seed diversity and the farmers' rights to use and save non GM seeds have been rapid. Instead, unreliable non-renewable, patented seed must be bought every year.
It is a reminder of a deepening world crisis in agriculture that is rarely talked about. Read article

January 31st 2012 ~ Schmallenberg Virus now identified in 11 samples from Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent and East Sussex

See Schmallenberg updates at warmwell.com/schmallenberg.html

January 31 2012 ~ Final 2 members of the Animal Health and Welfare Board for England (AHWBE) confirmed

It may be remembered that page 6 of the final Responsibility and Cost Sharing for Animal Health and Welfare report a year ago (December 2010) issues a warning:
"....Unless the right people join the Board, people whom the animal keepers and other stakeholders trust and respect, it will not work. And the communication channels up and down to and from the Board have to be excellent: if they are not, the initiative will fail. It will require changes to the way everyone works: Ministers; civil servants; animal keepers and their representative organisations; vets; other stakeholders alike. "
Last week, the NFU "criticised the lack of grassroots farm involvement and transparency in the body" (See FG) But Richard Davis, a dairy and arable farmer from North Bedfordshire, and Jonathan Rushton, an economist and senior lecturer at the Royal Veterinary College have now been co-opted onto the Board and will attend their first meeting on February 7. (The Board has already met three times.) In September last year, we heard that the board would combine around eight experts from outside Government, including farmers, vets and animal welfare specialists, with Defra's chief veterinary officer and four other civil servants. About 60 people applied.
* The full membership, showing the comparative weighting between DEFRA and non executive members, is now on our Cost Sharing and Responsibility page.

January 31 2012 ~ US document "Vaccination for Foot and Mouth Disease - Strategies and Considerations"

A first skim through the 83 page Appendix A of USDA Aphis' National Animal Health Emergency Management Services (NAHEMS) Guidelines - Vaccination for Foot and Mouth Disease - Strategies and Considerations(pdf file) suggests that it may be an excellent primer guide. On the subject of certain issues that were highly controversial during and after the 2001 outbreak, the document shows expert input.
On computer modelling, it acknowledges that
"outbreaks are unpredictable, models are a simplistic representation of the real world, parameters must be estimated (and may be unknown or unmeasureable) complex human value judgments are difficult to simulate, and there are always uncertainties in the model's assumptions."
The issue of virus transmission from so-called "carriers" has been controversial and often used in the UK as an argument against vaccination. Here, we read:
".... Controlled experiments have been uniformly unsuccessful in attempting to demonstrate transmission from domesticated animal carriers by direct contact. The occurrence of carriers does not seem to have interfered with eradication efforts that used vaccination, such as the vaccination campaigns in South America."

January 31st 2012 ~ The record is put straight too about the often misunderstood 2001 vaccination campaigns in the Netherlands and in Uruguay

On the "vaccination to kill" policy in the Netherlands
"... the large scale destruction of apparently healthy, vaccinated animals was highly controversial among the public and some farmers . Since the outbreak, politicians in the Netherlands have been prominent in advocating changes in E.U. FMD legislation. After new E.U. FMD legislation and changes in the OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code were implemented, vaccination-to-live with DIVA testing and the culling of infected herds became the preferred Dutch vaccination policy..".
And on Uruguay's decision to vaccinate cattle (sheep were not vaccinated) in 2001 without killing animals:
"...Although the number of infected farms was similar to the 2001 FMD outbreak in the U.K., the cost of eradication was considerably less in Uruguay, and far fewer animals were destroyed."
The pros and cons of vaccination are looked at even-handedly. It is interesting - and from our own point of view, reassuring - to read:
"The emotional impact of the destruction of apparently healthy animals should also be taken into consideration."
Read in full (pdf)

January 29th 2012 ~ Schmallenberg - Cooperation between countries - thanks to the Freidrich Loeffler Institute in Germany

Scientists from Moredun Research Institute near Edinburgh have announced that they will be screening all suspect cases of Schmallenberg virus (SBV) found in Scotland using the PCR test for Schmallenberg virus - thanks to a collaboration with the Freidrich Loeffler Institute in Germany. See warmwell's updating SBV page
Although Lord Holbeach announced in the House of Lords on Thursday that the EU is not yet making this disease notifiable, Germany's food, agriculture, and consumer protection ministry said it would, by "late March [2012]," set up a system of mandatory reporting after approval by the German senate. Earlier this week in Brussels, Germany argued for a similar system to be set up at the European level. The Netherlands and parts of France have already made reporting mandatory. Many livestock farmers are now beginning to realise the seriousness of the threat and the urgent need for a vaccine. Anxiously watching the birth of lambs and calves is not going to be much fun for UK farmers - who have already suffered so much in the past decade from Foot and Mouth, Bluetongue and bovine TB.

January 28th 2012 ~ Schmallenberg Virus confirmed in France on Thursday

France put in place a monitoring system to detect the introduction of the Schmallenberg virus in its national territories as soon as the emergence of SBV began to look serious. On Thursday the virus was identified in lambs in 13 premises in 6 different departments of North East France.
More at our dedicated Schmallenberg page

January 27th 2012 ~ Shop local. Shop Free Range. This makes more sense than ever.

In spite of the news greeted with pleasure this morning about DEFRA's plan "to boost (food and drink) exports including removing trade barriers; encouraging and putting in place measures to help SMEs export; shifting the focus to emerging economies and highlighting exporting as the key route to growth" - many remain sceptical that the politicians' hope of imminent returning "growth" is at all likely to happen.
As the prescient Chris Martenson says of the latest European proposals, they are
"...simply "sound and fury, signifying nothing". At this point, a deep and prolonged recession is a certainty."
So a website that gives information to the UK about free range food, where to get it (enter postcode) and how shopping locally really does help the local economy, is very welcome indeed. (Thanks to Gary B for the link.) http://www.freerangereview.com/

January 26th 2012 ~ Japanese bird-flu scientist says research must not be kept secret

On December 20th, the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity advised Nature and the US journal Science not to publish the findings of the 2 most recent H5N1 studies, and scientists to restrict publication of their studies, for fear of "terrorism".
Professor Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Tokyo's Institute of Medical Science is a lead researcher on one of 2 recent studies of a potentially highly lethal version of the virus. Yesterday Nature published a letter from him saying that redacting his team's manuscript in order to contain risk would make it harder for legitimate scientists to get the information - while failing to provide a barrier to those who would do harm.
"The new work has implications for pandemic preparedness. There is an urgent need to expand development, production and distribution of vaccines against H5 viruses, and to stockpile antiviral compounds..." (Nature)
Source.

January 25th 2012 ~ Schmallenberg Virus: Dr Martin Beer of the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute, Riems Island, says we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg.

The German site www.topagrar.com quoted by ProMed in the translation by Sabine Zentis, reports that the number of German farms affected by SBV is "increasing every day". Read ProMed post (10) and see warmwell's updating SBV page

January 25th 2012 ~ EU rules to protect animal welfare are not being adequately enforced says BVA

"Effective implementation and enforcement of legislation throughout the EU is essential if we are to make a significant difference to the welfare of animals," says the latest BVA news release. Carl Padgett, President of the British Veterinary Association, is quoted. Extract:
" ...I am particularly pleased to see that several recommendations made by the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE), of which we are a member, have been taken on board by the Commission... The Commission's announcement of a study to provide consumers with relevant information on the stunning of slaughter animals is a positive step, as are proposed guidelines for the protection of pigs and studies on the welfare of farmed fish during transport and at slaughter.
(However) Given the well-documented problems surrounding dairy cattle welfare, we are particularly concerned at the omission of any new legislation to improve the welfare of dairy cows. ...we are disappointed at the lack of measures relating to companion animals in general...Read in full"
As the BVA implies, and as we have seen with the ban on battery cages for example, it is one thing for the EU to produce legislation that seems to protect animals - but quite another to enforce compliance.

January 24th 2012 ~ Eradication of Foot and Mouth? The OIE mentions "lack of political will in some countries" - but for us in the West it should be "enlightened self-interest, not benevolence"

Exactly one year ago, Dr Roger Breeze wrote to warmwell to emphasise that "the fight against epidemic diseases of humans and animals is far from over; indeed, for livestock diseases it has barely started in most of the world." He is convinced that a concerted fight against FMD and other epidemic diseases is needed, and that it must begin at their source where the reservoirs of infection persist and where losses can be catastrophic.
".... the Cambodian subsistence farming family loses half its rice crop when the buffaloes are hit during paddy field preparation, and the fattening pigs and calves die or require expensive treatment. The progressive Bangladeshi dairy farmer with ten cows loses overnight most of the milk production and daily income from it. When the disease strikes just after lambing time, the northern Iraqi shepherd loses 400 of his 500 lambs from heart damage, together with much of the milk for consumption and sale. These real examples do not cover the full spectrum of impact, but they do illustrate the immediate, direct effects of FMD. .... For the more developed nations to assist the developing nations in this fight must be regarded as enlightened self-interest, not benevolence"
Like many of us, Dr Breeze believes there are no technological barriers to the elimination of the major transboundary livestock diseases - and that they can indeed be effectively tackled in our own lifetimes. Read in full

January 24th 2012 ~ OIE: the aim of "global control of FMD is therefore particularly timely and ties in perfectly with the OIE objective of improving animal health and welfare worldwide."

The second Global Conference on Foot and Mouth Disease Control will take place in Bangkok (Thailand) from 27th to 29th June 2012. The OIE says
"... Even when, at great expense, countries have rid themselves of FMD and been accorded official FMD-free status by the OIE, they remain under constant threat of it being accidentally or intentionally reintroduced and so are obliged to maintain costly systems of border protection and nationwide continuous field surveillance.
The global effort spearheaded by the OIE and the United Nations (represented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [FAO]) aiming at the global control of FMD is therefore particularly timely and ties in perfectly with the OIE objective of improving animal health and welfare worldwide."
In 2001,10 millions of animals (Telegraph) were destroyed in the UK and eventual financial losses were conservatively estimated at ten billion pounds. (In fact,in April 2001 the Institute of Directors predicted a cost of £40 billion and that was only up to the end of July 2001. As we know, the last cull quietly to take place in that outbreak was in 2002.)
The OIE (source) hopes that
"the organisation of vaccination campaigns could provide an opportunity to control other priority animal diseases and creates economies of scale".
In 1999, the FAO predicted that with vaccination, rinderpest would be eradicated by 2010. In June 2011 global freedom from rinderpest status was ratified by Ministers of Agriculture at the FAO conference. Could 2012 really see the beginning of the global end of foot and mouth disease?

January 24th 2012 ~ "dismayed at Government delays to the Groceries Code Adjudicator" - Mary Creagh

Yesterday's Opposition Day Commons debate on "Rising Food Prices and Food Poverty" lasted from 4.20 until almost 7pm in spite of an 8 minute rule for back benchers. The motion expressed dismay at Government delays to the setting up of a Groceries Code Adjudicator, having "rejected recommendations by the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee and Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee to give it teeth..." As Mary Creagh said:
"...If there is bad treatment at the top of the pyramid, that sets the tone for treatment all the way down the food chain, right down to the workers in the field. What we want is culture change across the food industry."
While agreeing that commodity prices and food prices are rising all over the world, Mary Creagh added
"... where we are self-sufficient we are more protected from those food price spikes than where we rely on imports"
The House was very full -even if many arrived late so that they could vote. At one point Andrew George turned on a Conservative who with a trivial comment had interrupted him, and said:
"The hon. Gentleman has only just arrived in the Chamber, so I advise him not to start."
The Lib Dem Andrew George, who has fought hard for the Grocery Ombudsman, was very much in accord with Labour's Shadow DEFRA Minister, Mary Creagh, it seemed. Nevertheless, the motion was defeated. Read debate.

January 23rd 2012 ~ Schmallenberg Virus has reached the UK. SBV has been identified by AHVLA from samples coming from Norfolk, Suffolk and East Sussex.

The news we did not want to hear. The samples were analysed at the Virology Laboratory, AHVLA Weybridge using information provided by the Netherlands and the Friedrich Loeffler Institute.
"Specific RT-PCR products were detected by two independent means from two different genes of SBV. Along with the sequence information we have obtained, all combined with the clinical picture seen, we consider this now provides a sufficient level of laboratory confirmation to conclude that SBV has been detected in GB sheep."
The Farmers Guardian quotes an AHVLA spokesman:
"We have finished the initial analysis of samples we have received as a result of our enhanced surveillance for this new disease. We have identified the Schmallenberg Virus in some of these samples and as we continue surveillance we may find further cases. ...These counties are in the area that we had identified as potentially being at risk from infected midges blown across the Channel from the affected areas and we suspect that this is the most likely cause of transmission."
See also warmwell's Schmallenberg Virus update page. See also DEFRA's AHVLA website today.

January 23rd 2012 ~ "To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps she is taking to ensure that the closure of regional veterinary laboratories does not adversely affect the levels of disease among farm livestock." Hansard

Since state of the art technology exists to check on site for many pathogens - including foot and mouth - we have yet to hear any cogent reason for the UK's continuing reluctance to include such real time monitoring into contingency planning - or better still, into the hands of those whose livelihood depends on healthy livestock and crops.
Since what Jim Paice on Friday called the "rationalisation of the laboratory services department" and since no AHVLA laboratory operates on weekends or bank holidays, few would deny that the situation at present is not helpful in the face of emerging pathogens such as the Schmallenberg virus and the constant threat of foot and mouth and others.

January 23rd 2012 ~ "... an entirely new food-monitoring system that we average people can really trust."

Not surprisingly, the Japanese are losing confidence in the Government assurances that food is safe from radiation contamination since officials have "understated or even covered up the true extent of the public health risk in order to limit both the economic damage and the size of potential compensation payments".
An economics professor at Keio University in Tokyo is quoted in the New York Times He points to - "repeated failures" of food-monitoring.
:"...the people are learning from the blogs, Twitter and Facebook that the government's food-monitoring system is simply not credible."
As a result, Japanese farmers are doing what many now feel all farmers should do: take monitoring for contamination and disease into their own hands so that consumers are reassured by transparency. One group uses a $40,000 testing device that was donated by a nongovernmental group. The farmers post the results on the Internet for all to see. Sachiko Sato, founder of "Network of Parents to Protect Children from Radiation", (a grass roots group known in Japan as "Mamorukai" which has rapidly grown into a nationwide network with 200 chapters) is quoted:
"If the government treated us like adults, there would be no need for Mamorukai. Japan must build an entirely new food-monitoring system that we average people can really trust."

January 20th 2012 ~ Schmallenberg virus detected yesterday near Belgium's border with France

See ProMed
"...Schmallenberg virus (SBV) was detected on 19 Jan 2012 by RT-PCR in the brain of a 6 month old Belgian Blue male aborted foetus calf. The aborted foetus did not present malformation but subcutaneous oedema and hydranencephaly at necropsy. The herd is located in the south of Belgium, near the French border, and has about 300 cattle, mostly of the Belgian Blue beef type and several dairy cows. Brucellosis, BVD, mycosis, and current bacteria have been excluded. Testing for BTV, Q fever, and _Neospora caninum_ are ongoing
Although at this stage SBV cannot be claimed as responsible for the abortion, these findings go in line with the assumptions made by the Dutch colleagues that it is more difficult to prove the presence of SBV in calves than it is in lambs because of the longer time between infection and parturition in cattle...."
See also our archive of SBV reports

January 19th 2012 ~ "Monsanto has created an atmosphere of fear in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy"

The first phase of a court case filed to protect farmers from genetic trespass by Monsanto's GMO seed will take placein the United States on January 31. Monsanto's seed monopoly is now so powerful that they control the genetics of nearly 90% of five major commodity crops including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and sugar beets. As we read on fooddemocracynow.org
"In many cases farmers are forced to stop growing certain crops to avoid genetic contamination and potential lawsuits. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto admits to filing 144 lawsuits against America's family farmers, while settling another 700 out of court for undisclosed amounts. Due to these aggressive lawsuits, Monsanto has created an atmosphere of fear in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy. Please join us in standing up for family farmers everywhere against Monsanto's abusive seed monopoly."
"He who controls the food, controls the world" is a United Nations tenet - and one surely well worth remembering. (See also below)

January 18th 2012 ~ Bringing together the community, encouraging social interaction on the village allotments site and providing a home to battery hens.

At a time of imminent economic and perhaps even social collapse, excellent advice on building a lifeboat from the prescient Nicole Foss includes:
"...Gain some control over the necessities of your own existence if you can afford it. Be prepared to work with others as that will give you far greater scope for resilience and security."
So, one of the most encouraging website pages seen for some time is this example of a village in East Anglia that 3 years ago organised its own working parties throughout the winter months to clear a site and construct fencing for a chicken cooperative.
".. The cost of the materials was funded solely by the group and, with a variety of skills amongst us, we coped well with the hard work....Our first eight hens arrived in March 2009; they were battery hens from the Little Hen Rescue centre near Tasburgh and looked very poorly, as you would expect. They were very timid and would not come outside the chicken house, even on bright sunny days....they are now very healthy and friendly."
Grass roots cooperation from the village of Metfield - population 370 - such a good idea, and their website suggests there are other money-saving and community-building schemes afoot. Read in full

January 17th 2012 ~ The good-egg list

The NFU has made a useful list of those UK retailers and processers who have confirmed a commitment not to source eggs from producers using battery cages. The NFU and those "egg farmers" who made the switch from battery cages to the somewhat more humane "enriched" cages feel that the investment that has been made is undermined by the continuing use by some outlets in Britain of cheap eggs from battery hens.
The Farmers Guardian today names Northern Foods, Brakes and Pizza Express who have been 'named and shamed' by the NFU for failing to ban illegally imported battery cage eggs. (See also below)

January 15th 2012 ~ GM "Both these pending legal cases could set important precedents for biopiracy in India and Europe."

According to Vandana Shiva, the biotech giant Monsanto is turning Indian farmers into seed slaves and consumers in captivity by "patenting" its own GM seeds and making sure that no seeds from native plants can compete. As we reported below India is suing Monsanto for "Biopiracy", accusing the company of stealing India's indigenous plants. Extract from Nature Biotechnology volume 30 number 1 January 2012
"India's National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) is alleging that the developers of India's first GM food crop - Jalna-based Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company (Mahyco) partnered with St. Louis-based seed giant Monsanto and several local universities - used local varieties to develop the transgenic crop, but failed to gain the appropriate licenses for field trials. At the same time, activists in Europe are claiming that patents on conventionally bred plants, including a melon found in India, filed by biotech companies violate farmers' rights to use naturally occurring breeds.
In America meanwhile, 83 seed businesses, trade organisations and family farmers, together representing more than 270,000 people, are bringing a lawsuit against Monsanto questioning the validity of Monsanto's patents on GM seeds. Monsanto has created some of the most controversial products on the planet, including Agent Orange, dioxin, recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) and genetically modified seeds. As for Glyphosate, the major ingredient in the Monsanto's ubiquitous weedkiller Roundup, Mercola.com reports that "recent studies show it does not readily break down in the environment and is now contaminating our air, rain, water and food. Glyphosate has been linked to more than 20 adverse health effects, including birth defects, infertility and cancer."

January 14th 2012 ~ "I have for a long time believed that as farming moves nearer the market and out of the shelter of government, it needs its own professional body"

Perhaps Jim Paice was ill-advised to use a word like "shelter" in discussion of the government's involvement with farming.
At the Oxford Conference (not the "Real" one) his "personal idea" was for an "Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board" which, he told Farmers Weekly, could "help to encourage and spread best practice among farmers".
At a time when 95% of food products are oil-dependent, which means that the fertilisers and mechanisation to increase production will not be there when cheap oil disappears, what constitutes "best practice" might, of course, benefit from discussion with Tim Lang and his fellow speakers at the alternative "Oxford Real Farming Conference". Professor Lang started out as a hill farmer and is deeply sympathetic to farm animal welfare issues.
Farmers Weekly, not entirely cynical about the idea of a new professional body for farmers, nevertheless comments that the idea ".. certainly fits in well with the austerity drive that has seen cutbacks across government departments and agencies."

January 13th 2012 ~ Around 30 egg producers in the UK are still using battery cages

According to the Farmer's Guardian DEFRA " played down the UK figures, which emerged at a meeting of the European Commission Standing Committee on Food Chain and Animal Health (SCoFCAH) on Thursday." Compassion in World Farming asks readers to take a few moments to send this letter , asking Jim Paice to take immediate action against the 30 producers involved - and to additionally ensure that none of the illegal eggs enter the UK food chain.
(An email received today from Sainsbury's) Extract:
"We are genuinely committed to continuously improving life for all farm animals in our supply chain.
When we refer to ingredients coming from "cage free" hens, this includes free range hens and Barn hens. Sainsbury's barn eggs are laid by chickens reared indoors with the freedom to roam within a barn. The farms are all inspected to RSPCA welfare standards and approved by Freedom Food.
We aim to ensure that any eggs used as ingredients in our own brand products will be from cage free hens. However, the Sainsbury's Taste the Difference and Kids' ranges already use only free range eggs as ingredients"
We hope to hear from other supermarkets soon.

January 13th 2012 ~ "So we are led into economics, and into politics and the law - which at present are obstructing the kind of farming that the world really needs." Colin Tudge.

Reflecting on the alternative "Oxford Real Farming Conference" last week, Colin Tudge, who mentions the key points of many other speakers, says we need a farming that is diverse, low input (organic by preference) and skills-intensive.
"...Grass - represented not least by the newly-formed Pasture-Fed Livestock Association - and city-linked horticulture must feature mightily. All this is precisely opposite to what we have now and what the government advocates -- which is high-input monoculture on the grandest scale with as few workers as possible (if we don't count the bus-loads of immigrants).
Industrial farming is favoured because it is profitable and in the present, corporate- led, neoliberal, heavily rigged but allegedly free global market, profit is all. .... Farms must be re-conceived socially - labour-intensive conviviality... the city-country barriers broken down..." Read in full.
He concludes by saying we need science that is geared to the public good and the wellbeing of the world and is not, as now, simply "the handmaiden of big governments and big industries". ( ORFC can be followed on Twitter.)

January 12th 2012 ~ ScoFCAH statement on the Schmallenberg virus.

Read in full. Extract:
"..... direct transmission from animal to animal unlikely. However, vertical transmission from dam to newborn via the intra-uterine route does occur as with other similar viruses. Since no clear geographical clusters of these cases has been shown so far, it suggests that there may be many more undetected subclinical cases of infection...
... congenital malformation in newborn animals are most likely caused by transmission of virus by insect vectors that occurred in summer and early autumn during pregnancy.
There is no evidence that the Schmallenberg virus could cause illness in humans...
Given that this virus is likely transmitted by means of insect vectors, further virus circulation in the current winter is unlikely to occur. This will allow Member States time to gather further data and to plan further actions.... The Member States and the Commission consider that it is, therefore, necessary to continue field investigations and surveys on this virus
Read Moderator's comments at www.promedmail.org SCoFCAH agreed to develop a guidance document on surveillance as a matter of urgency.
France is now also officially requiring notification.

January 11th 2012 ~ New veterinary Surveillance group for England and Wales - but "any future model must be shaped by good surveillance strategies, not the need to cut costs".

In view of the unwelcome appearance of the Schmallenberg virus in northern Europe (on SCoFCAH agenda in Brussels today), as well as the constant fear of diseases such as Foot and Mouth, Classical Swine Fever, African Horse Sickness and so on, an effective surveillance system is urgently needed.
The Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) has set up an independent advisory group under the chairmanship of Dirk Pfeiffer, Professor of Veterinary Epidemiology at the Royal Veterinary College. The group has been created to "recommend a future delivery model for veterinary surveillance in England and Wales" (SeeVLA website). One of the 12 members is Alick Simmons, DEFRA's Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer. In February last year he declared to the BBC that "border controls were already robust enough" to prevent the entry of disease.
Carl Padgett, President of the BVA, emphasises that views from both veterinary practitioners and veterinary scientists are needed.
"... any future model must be shaped by good surveillance strategies, not the need to cut costs. We urge all practitioners in England and Wales to contribute to the discussions by completing the online survey." (See www.farminguk.com for BVA Press Release)
A detailed Q&A page, including the names of those in the group, can be seen here at http://vla.defra.gov.uk

January 11th 2012 ~ The Schmallenberg virus is being discussed today and tomorrow in Brussels

The ProMed moderator, AS, comments
" Additional information on SBV is expected to become available and be discussed during the due meeting of EU's Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health (SCFCAH), Section Animal Health and Welfare (Wed 11 and Thu 12 Jan 2012) in Brussels; agenda item 5F is: "Information from Germany and The Netherlands and exchange of views on the Schmallenberg virus infection of ruminants." We are also informed about a French official requirement for notification of malformations in ruminants; details will be appreciated."
See Schmallenberg page

January 8th 2012 ~ Joanna Lumley - the ghastly trade's worst nightmare?

Joanna Lumley is throwing her persuasive charm into the fray to stop a trade she abhors. Live exports from the UK have, according to published figures, risen by 300% in the past year. There is precious little accountability so it is hard to be sure what happens to the majority of calves, lambs, pigs and even goats during and after their long journeys.
As FWi reports, the excellent Compassion in World Farming has just begun a national bus advertising campaign. The advert features a bus crammed with sheep and the message: "They can't ring the bell when they want to get off."
At the launch event in Trafalgar Square on Thursday Joanna Lumley said:
"The numbers involved in live exports is shocking. We need to act on this ghastly trade now. 2012 is an auspicious year. This is the year for change."
The only port used for exports to the continent as of May last year was Ramsgate, in Kent. CIWF wants the port authorities to hike their port fees in order to discourage live exports.

January 7th 2012 ~ The keeping of hens in intensive conditions just hard headed good sense...?

Among many others, 56 rescued battery hens from the Battery Hen Welfare Trust in Chulmleigh, Devon, were collected by Hen "3 days before battery cages became illegal in favour of the still horrific 'enriched' battery cages". See short video. From Hen's Blog, "Heart and Soil":
"...I managed to hold it together as I was so busy sorting everything out. That was until I saw one hen in particular. She was so small, so bald, so thin and so miserable looking I let out a sob and that led to the flood gates opening, my heart broke and I just ached for the poor wee things and the horror they'd endured. Not only that, I ached for the billions of caged animals across the World suffering to feed our greed. Incomprehensible, horrifying. I hate the thought that each and every one of us buy products knowingly & unknowingly every week that contain products from this industry (It's not farming). Any products containing eggs/meat/stock from caged animals should be clearly marked. That includes McVities biscuits, ready meals, pasta etc, etc, etc..."
The ultimate aim is to see consumers and food manufacturers buying only UK produced free range eggs. Remember the oft-quoted Ghandi, who said: "We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals. ... and (a nation's) moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

January 6th 2012 ~ Mary Creagh expresses concerns over delays in implementing the Grocery Ombudsman

(We must, I suppose , refer to this as the Groceries Code "Adjudicator".)
Mary Creagh, the Shadow DEFRA Secretary, said at the Oxford Farming Conference that Labour , having got cross-party agreement on the need for a Groceries Code Adjudicator when they were in power, are now
" worried by Government delays which mean that the adjudicator will probably not be up and running until 2014/15."
Jim Paice is quoted at www.meatinfo.co.uk saying that DEFRA
" is now studying those ideas as to whether to change the bill with the original, and we hope they'll come forward with the final version for parliament to consider some time in the not too distant future."
Ombudsman page. Back in July 2010, the chair of the Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, Andrew Bailey, said:
" It is now already three years since the Competition Commission's recommendation for an Adjudicator. The Government should move ahead with legislation as soon as possible."
See publications.parliament.uk

January 5th 2012 ~ "Corporate Farming" , unsustainable bubbles - and the rebel Oxford Real Farming Conference

Among all its statistics and graphs and use of words such as "power", "corporate players" and "corporate globalisation", the Power in Agriculture report (or download full pdf), the main focus of the Oxford Farming Conference, does at least quietly comment that water-intensive, fertiliser-intensive and energy-intensive agricultural practices of European countries are unlikely to be sustainable in the long-term
"European countries, including the UK, appear to be relatively poorly endowed in global terms with the critical natural resources used in agriculture, such as land, water, potassium, phosphate, oil and natural gas"
Well yes. Farmers who continue to believe that business as usual is going to be possible in a world of financial collapse, diminishing resources and the end of cheap oil have their heads in the sand. But are the best answers necessarily being debated at the conventional OFC?
On the other hand - and on the other side of the street at Magdelen College - the alternative two day "Oxford Real Farming Conference" has an inspiring set of sessions and speakers The theme is rethinking farming so that people can be fed without the rest of the world being wrecked. Healthy soil, pasture fed livestock, Agroecology and an end to over intensive systems that blow the bubble ever more grossly in the race for profits and growth
" It's all too obvious now that governments are not to be trusted with our farming. We, people at large, Ordinary Joes, must take control and do what needs doing - together with those farmers and scientists who still retain a sense of what farming ought to be, and of how to do what needs doing."
(More) It is timely to quote Professor Tim Lang, one of the Speakers at the "Real" conference:
"The 20th century squandered scientific possibilities. It created the fiction that ever more food can be produced by tapping oil, throwing fertiliser at seeds, spraying endless water and treating the soil as blotting paper, a neutral medium. We now know how fragile that mix is, and how fragile the Earth's crust and biology are too...."

January 4th 2012 ~ SCOFCAH will discuss the Schmallenberg virus on January 11th

The UK should be aware of the Schmallenberg virus- whose progress does seem in some respects to be following the pattern of Bluetongue - and could well soon be with us. It looks as though the virus is being carried by the same culicoides midge that is the vector of Bluetongue.
The newly discovered "Schmallenberg" virus is causing deformities among ruminants in the North Rhine-Westphalia of Germany, on about 30 farms in the Netherlands and also, in the last couple of weeks, among sheep in Belgium.
Deformed animals are mainly born dead and those that survive are not viable.
The virus has been named after Schmallenberg in Germany, where the virus was found in calves in November. The Schmallenberg virus can also cause diarrhoea in cows.
The map shows the location of a newly confirmed infection at goat farm in Dalfsen, Overijssel, yesterday. The virus has been confirmed Schmallenberg-virus [SBV] positive by the new Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (nVWA).
ProMed is following the progress of the disease. As the moderator says, "... hopefully, more light will be shed on SBV during next week's discussions of EU's "Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health" (SCOFCAH), to take place in Brussels on 11 Jan 2012"
(When it was realised that Bluetongue was not transmitted directly between animals and the EU's usual preference for mass slaughter useless, vaccination was quickly accepted. Bluetongue vaccination was undertaken voluntarily by concerned English farmers - but insisted upon by authorities in France and Scotland. This ensured that the UK got rid of Bluetongue)

January 3rd 2012 ~ British Egg Industry Council (BEIC) launches the first stage towards a Judicial Review, challenging UK response to the EU battery cage ban

British egg producers invested £400 million to comply with the new rules. "Enriched colony" cages that have replaced battery cages do, at least, provide 750cm^² per bird along with a nest box for the birds to lay their eggs in, perching space for the birds to sleep on and an area where they can scratch about as free range hens do. The UK is deeply concerned that producers in 13 other EU countries, including Spain, Italy and Poland, have not fully complied with the ban. The Government has said it will not impose a unilateral ban on eggs produced abroad in battery cages, citing "very significant legal and financial implications". The BEIC considers this is ridiculous and says the Government should conduct proper checks of imported eggs, egg products and products containing eggs entering UK ports, egg packing stations, processing plants, importers and wholesalers - and has written to DEFRA a "pre-action protocol" letter. More at www.farmersguardian.com

January 3rd 2012 ~ "There are certain things that should never be done to an animal whatever the benefits to Mankind.." Professor Christopher Wathes

Professor Christopher Wathes on Farming Today advises that farmers should be paid for improving animals' quality of life, adding that the free market cannot be relied upon to improve conditions for livestock. He described a welfare stewardship scheme similar to the way environment payments reward conservation with money allowed for this purpose by Brussels. (listen again at 4.19 minutes). Professor Wathes, chairman of the Farm Animal Welfare Committee, was referring particularly to slaughter practices, beak trimming, and castration of young animals without pain killers.
"The quality of life of farm animals is incredibly important for society in general because of the scale of our use...about a billion farm animals every year, the majority of which are broiler chickens...there are certain things that should never be done to an animal whatever the benefits to Mankind.... they should have a humane death..certain mutilations should be eventually phased out...."
He pointed out that at present the law about "unnecessary suffering" implies that some suffering of farm animals is deemed to be necessary - but that this is suffering that would never be permitted if applied, for example, to household pets. Farming Today

January 2nd 2012 ~ Can 2012 be the Year of the Town and Village Green - or is DEFRA, "under pressure from greedy development industry", wrecking the process?

The Open Spaces Society is strongly urging local communities to register green land "where they have enjoyed at least 20 years of informal recreation" - and to do it quickly before the land is threatened with development. :
‘We can help you through the process. We urge you to start now. Make 2012 the Year of the Town and Village Green."
However, the process is under threat. Yeovil People is unhappy about DEFRA's role:
"the Open Spaces Society offered a set of proposed improvements to the former environment minister, including the introduction of timescales at every stage, and greater liaison and transparency. These did not need a change in the law, merely in the guidance.
Sadly, they weren't taken up. Instead, DEFRA, under pressure from the greedy development industry, proposed a package of measures in a consultation paper last summer. These could wreck the process for registering greens, and pose a significant threat to green spaces throughout England, especially when they are considered alongside the DCLG's National Planning Policy Framework with its "presumption in favour of sustainable development' (whatever that means, and it's not defined)..." read in full
The article says that DEFRA claims that greens registration is being used to "prevent development", but, asks the article, where is the evidence for such a claim?
".. the whole point about greens registration is that it applies to any land with the necessary user evidence - including scruffy, out-of-the-way places where people walk the dog and pick blackberries. Surely this is localism at its best?"

December 29th 2011 ~ Pet Passport regulations - the changes

The UK has had to bring its regulations in line with the rest of the EU. Although many of us have been happily and safely crossing the Channel with our pets since 2000 (after which a quarantine stay of 6 months was at last judged unnecessary for rabies vaccinated pets), a rather odd BBC article today gives the distinct impression that up until now, all pets have been quarantined on arrival in the UK. This is not so. UK regulations certainly have, until now, continued to demand before the pet could travel a six month delay after a blood test has proved rabies treatment successful. The "harmonising" change means that the UK will no longer demand this delay once the vaccine results show success.
Between 2000 until now, parasite treatments and health checks in addition to the rabies checks and identification chips have all had to be recorded in the UK pet passport, involving lengthy checks at embarcation and on arrival in Britain. Veterinary charges involved in travel have been very high - as have tickets for travel towards (but not away from) the UK for those bringing their pets.
The BBC article today suggests strongly that the new rules will somehow make the incursion of rabies more likely. There seems no justification for such a view. A spokesman from a Quarantine Kennels (who will now presumably lose a lot of business), is quoted as saying that the UK is going to be "very, very vulnerable". But surely, the smuggling in of untreated animals was far more likely when the stricter rules of 2000- 2011 applied.
Correction Warmwell.com is grateful to Mr Jim Dring, who has pointed out that, "Tapeworm treatment of dogs is still required between 24 and 120 hours before expected date of arrival."

December 23rd 2011 ~ The American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly ducks out of controlling the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture

In Europe, subtherapeutic or "growth promoter" dosing of feed has been banned since 2005. There is a 39 page bibilography, published by the Pew Charitable Trusts of scientific papers showing the link between antibiotic use in animals and antibiotic-resistant illness in humans. But we read today on Wired.com that
"With no notice other than a holiday-eve posting in the Federal Register, the US Food and Drug Administration has reneged on its long-stated intention to compel large-scale agriculture to curb over-use of agricultural antibiotics, which it had planned to do by reversing its approval for putting penicillin and tetracyclines in feed.
How long-stated? The FDA first announced its intention to withdraw those approvals in 1977...."
Read in full As the Wired article says, "The FDA first announced its intention to withdraw those approvals in 1977". There must be some very powerful lobbyists out there, it seems, for whom profit will always be a far more important goal than animal and human health.

December 21st 2011 ~ Succinct introduction to ELS on Myfarm.com

The National Trust MyFarm project near Royston in Cambridgeshire asks its donor farmers to vote for the key decisions being made on the farm - and always gives helpful information to help them make their choices. This time it is about whether to maintain the current Entry Level Stewardship measures on the new addition to the farm; the Cambridge Road Farm, a conventionally farmed 250 acres of arable land, which is now to run alongside the organic "MyFarm" on the Wimpole Estate. For those who don't know what ELS is, the explanation here is clear and helpful. It will be very interesting to see how the organic/non organic debate plays out at Myfarm.

December 19th 2011 ~ Schmallenberg virus: "may cause severe congenital damages in pregnant animals, as well as premature births and reproductive disorders".

An unwelcome new arrival in the Netherlandsand Germany. (More www.healthmap.org) We can only hope that "Schmallenberg" is not a word we get used to hearing. ProMed published this posting on Dec 17th.

December 19th 2011 ~ "Both surface supply and underground fossil stores of clean water are depleting at alarming rates"

An important and timely reminder about what is coming to be termed "Peak Water" comes from www.chrismartenson.com You can listen to Chris Martenson's interview with Jack Keller or read the transcript. Chris Martenson said:
"... we saw a year ago, the Ukraine had this extraordinarily bad drought and it led to fires that ended up burning up a bunch of crops. Then down in the Queensland in Australia area they had the opposite problem, they had this huge flooding, which again wiped out a pretty significant chunk of wheat crop. The next thing you knew the globe was facing higher wheat prices. The extent to which we are going to see crop impingements or even failures because of aquifer failures, it does become a global issue in terms of food prices although the crisis itself will be highly localized. I have pretty big concerns taking a look at what we are expecting and anticipating in terms of food productivity growth over the next 10 or 20 years....water seems to be a potential limiting factor in a whole bunch of regions that are currently quite productive in food production."
(Like us, Chris Martenson thinks that this talk by Professor Albert Bartlett about exponential growth should be required watching for anyone who ever expresses an opinion about the acceleration in resource depletion. "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.")

December 15th 2011 ~ MP for Thirsk and Malton, Anne McIntosh, says DEFRA is taking too long

"We are concerned about the lack of momentum in implementing the recommendations of the Farm Regulation Task Force. The Government needs to get on with this work. Reducing red tape for farmers will save money and benefit rural communities and consumers."
Anne McIntosh is the chair of the EFRA Select Committe. She has written to Caroline Spelman to express concern that it is taking too long to implement the reforms set out in its report into the Farm Regulation Task Force. (See below)
The task force had given DEFRA a blueprint for reducing red tape, she said, yet five months on there have been no concrete examples of improvements in the situation. Her letter can be read here (pdf) or as a html file here..
Richard Macdonald's Farm Regulation Task Force had called for a change in the DEFRA mind-set towards helping with problems, rather than censuring and fining farmers through docking their Single Farm Payment subsidies.

December 16th 2011 ~ Foot and Mouth: The latest Contingency Plan appears to look exclusively towards an eventual use of Pirbright's own "lateral flow" device.

The most recent UK FMD Contingency Plan (Nov 20911) says:
2.2.3 On-farm (penside tests) tests are not currently used as a diagnostic tool for FMD in GB. This is mainly because the only on-farm test currently commercially available in the UK for FMD is a lateral flow device.
One wonders about the use of the word "mainly" and even more about the reason why tests successfully used abroad are not "commercially available" in the UK. Ten years ago, Uruguay's own 2001 FMD crisis successfully and safely made use of the rapid RT-PCR machine that was offered to - but rejected by - the then Chief Scientific Advisor, Prof David King.
DEFRA says that there must be
"a large amount of FMD virus present for a positive result and this is not always the case in animals which have been infected for some time or in sheep"
but even in 2001, the USDA device rejected by King was able to detect as few as 10 virus particles (letter to the Royal Society )
Ten years on there is a new generation of on-site diagnosis worldwide able to detect FMD within an hour and avoid the chaos and bloody waste of rapidly spreading disease - but home-grown efforts have yet to bring the promise of commercial profit to the UK. (The UK-based company, Stratophase, which had hoped "to produce a system the size of a briefcase that can detect whether there is foot-and-mouth present in real time", was not able to make use of live virus since Pirbright has the monopoly on its use - and their project has been dropped.)
Last month, however, a team from Pirbright itself published a paper: "Rapid detection of foot-and-mouth disease virus using a field-portable nucleic acid extraction and real-time PCR amplification platform" containing the hopeful sentence: "Future studies will be directed at the development and validation of commercially-viable consumables using lyophilised PCR reagents for FMDV and the evaluation of this technology in FMD endemic countries using field samples." One can only hope that rapid onsite diagnosis makes its way into a UK Contingency Plan before FMD makes its way back to Britain.

December 16th 2011 ~ This month's important research at Leeds cannot use actual FMD virus

Researchers at the University of Leeds have been studying an enzyme which forms fibrous structures (or fibrils) The replication process of the virus is not yet fully understood, but it is thought these fibrils may play an important role. If this is the case, the fact that the team has already found a molecule to block the fibril formation could be significant. The project was funded by the BBSRC and its findings have been published by the Journal of Virology.
According to the University of Leeds website, the team's leader, Dr Nicola Stonehouse, says
"It's too much of a jump to say that we've found a potential drug target for treatment of foot-and-mouth disease because there's still such a lot we don't know. However, we do think these findings are significant and provide us with a new avenue for exploration."
Pirbright remains the only facility in Great Britain licensed to work with the actual virus. In spite of the disastrous leak that led to the 2007 foot and mouth crisis, the mindset persists that all work on the live FMD virus must still be carried out solely at Pirbright because of "security". The Leeds team, therefore, has to make do with a non-harmful model of the FMD virus.
(It is unfortunate that the report about the Leeds research at www.healblog.net misleadingly suggests by means of a photo of a child, that FMD is a zoonotic disease.)

December 12th 2011 ~ DEFRA "Changing the way we work: from bureaucracy to responsibility and partnership"

Richard MacDonald, is the ex-NFU Director General who chaired the Farming Regulation Taskforce set up by James Paice into the over regulation of farming. DEFRA's interim response, published last week, concludes - in spite of an intention of "reducing, simplifying and streamlining wherever possible" - with the sort of truly horrible language we had fervently hoped never to have to grapple with again. Examples:
"... we will be working further to develop ideas into specific proposals for integrated and simplified environmental messages and earned recognition .... The Task Force report has provided us with a further opportunity to build on existing Better Regulation activities and push forward on these changes, ensuring that they are fully embedded in our departmental approach to policy making. ... We will embed partnership approaches at the earliest stage of policy development ... We want to work in collaboration with industry to share understanding on how to influence and incentivise best practice..." Read document (if you can incentivise yourself to do so.)
(Like Sir David King, Mr Macdonald was one who considered that the decision not to vaccinate against FMD in 2001 was "the right one". Indeed, he and Ben Gill evidently remain persuaded that their efforts to thwart the vaccination that could have protected the national flocks and herds was somehow correct - even though it was a decision based on short term trade protection, cost billions of pounds and caused the most profound distress in rural communities - and was most certainly not based on science as they claim. The "science" - as Uruguay's swift emergence from the disease was to prove in the same year - shows that correctly administered vaccination works extremely well. This is acknowledged in 2010, as these recommendations for FMD from the Draft EU Policy paper on "Vaccine and/or diagnostic banks ...strategic planning options FOR EMERGENCY situations or major crises" show. When will the thinking at DEFRA catch up?)

December 8th 2011 ~ How long, O Lord? How long?

The Countess of Mar asked yesterday "how the accuracy of the lateral flow device for the detection of foot and mouth disease virus compares with the accuracy of clinical diagnosis."[HL13676] Lord Taylor of Holbeach's Written Answer may fill others with incredulous gloom at the continuing refusal of Government to make use of existing and proven technology for on farm diagnosis. Lord Taylor said:
"While a positive result from a lateral flow device will confirm a positive suspicion of foot and mouth disease (FMD), a negative result cannot be relied on to confirm absence of disease." Hansard
This uncertainty allows the Government to continue to assert that "laboratory confirmation of field cases therefore remain essential" as if real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and virus serotyping assays could be carried out only at Pirbright. While Pirbright's "lateral flow device" cannot yet be relied on for the accuracy of its negative results, there are other devices, whose provenance is not Pirbright, that most certainly can. Pirbright collaborated with the Smiths Detection system (Bioseeq) and thousands of pounds were spent in research grants by DEFRA. The Bioseeq machine, although excellent, proved too expensive for commercial use. The DxNA machine, on the other hand, is already accessible and, as the website says,
"The advent of GeneStat PCR means that DNA and RNA analyses can now be accurately and rapidly done almost anywhere, indoors or outdoors, by virtually anybody."
Although in 2007 the Smiths system had looked promising it has now dropped out of sight. Is that a reason for the UK not to use the DxNA system - or others like it - already evaluated and proven in the field? The DxNA GeneSTAT PCR System successfully completed its evaluation in June and on the warmwell rapid diagnosis page we quoted DxNA Chief Executive Officer Phillip Grimm. He acknowledged the importance of the collaboration with the FAO in the establishment of this
" portable and mobile diagnostic system that demonstrates high sensitivity and specificity characteristics, but is also affordable throughout the world."

December 7th 2011 ~ Waste food to feed livestock? A compelling case for reassessment, says Baroness Jenkin

The ban on feeding food waste to animals has, in the opinion of many, gone on for long enough since swill feeding was leapt on in 2001 as a possible (but never proven) cause of the FMD crisis. Baroness Jenkin in the House of Lords yesterday summed up the issues admirably:
" It was obviously always a bad idea to feed animal by-products to herbivorous ruminants such as cows and sheep, but pigs and chickens are monogastric species like ourselves and are naturally omnivorous, thriving on the leftovers of our own food supply system. Sterilising food waste simply by heating it has been shown to be a guaranteed way of killing pathogens such as foot and mouth and classical swine fever, rendering it a safe source of livestock feed. There is peer-reviewed evidence that feeding food waste, including processed animal protein, to pigs has measurable benefits for their health and well-being."
DEFRA is apparently is funding a "desk study" review of the available evidence on the benefits and risks of using food waste in animal feed. It is due to report in May 2012.

December 7th 2011 ~ "Free Range Dairy aims to create an industry which produces high quality food that we can be proud of, rather than harnessing farmers to the treadmill of mass commodity production."

Free Range Dairy is a non-profit making organisation based in Somerset hoping to promote the value of pasture-based milk production, "for the benefit of farmers, cows and consumers". The creator of the initiative, Neil Darwent, writes to warmwell:
".. I will, of course, let you know what results the survey throws up.
It would also be really helpful to direct people to the Free Range Dairy website or there is a direct link to the survey www.freerangedairy.org/farmer-survey
As the website points out:
"The modern milk supply chain constantly asks producers to run faster for little or no reward and there is a growing air of inevitability about future intensification of our farms."
Interestingly, according to a WSPA post , 74% of Welsh adults said they would never buy milk produced in large-scale indoor dairy sheds. Showing that there is nothing "inevitable" about about future intensification will be very much helped by as many farmers as possible returning the survey. It will be the first stage of the development of Free Range Dairy. A series of regional farmer meetings are planned for early 2012, to define the principles upon which it will be founded. ( The survey www.freerangedairy.org/farmer-survey is easy to complete (link mended), and it can then be folded and returned by Freepost to Free Range Dairy.)

December 7th 2011 ~ EU ban on battery egg production: "There could be about 50 million hens that will still be in conventional cages across the EU in unacceptable conditions on 1 January 2012"

It has taken the EU twelve years to bring about a ban on battery cages - yet 13 of 27 Member States say they are still not ready. Yesterday, James Paice did what he could in the House of Commons (Hansard) to reassure UK producers that their own compliance with the ban would not lead to a flood of cheap illegal eggs. He insisted that he had "met with the Commission a number of times over the last year in an attempt to find a solution."
Unfortunately, an extraordinary EU proposal exists to legalise the sale of battery eggs, when they are illegally produced after 1 January 2012, for use as egg products.
The UK egg industry "feels totally let down by the Government" according to today's Farmers Guardian See also BBC report:" Egg farmers 'failed by ministers' over illegal EU eggs".
The British Egg Industry Council says its legal advice has "confirmed" that the UK "Government is able to enforce UK and EU law by banning illegal eggs and egg products". Mr Paice, however, said yesterday that :
".. given the very significant legal and financial implications of introducing such a ban, coupled with practical difficulties in enforcing it, it is not a realistic option."
Compassion in World Farming is running a letter campaign By submitting your name and address you can help CIWF to send letters to Commissioner John Dalli and to countries trying to avoid the ban. Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has said, "This ban will be one of the most significant steps forward for farm animal welfare ever taken" and it would be absurd if it fails after so much effort and good will.

December 7th 2011 ~ DEFRA's derogation on sheep EID is a "victory for common sense"

Days before the requirement to individually record movements of animals born before December 31, 2009 (the "historic flock") DEFRA's proposal to delay the requirement until the end of 2014 has been accepted. SCoFCAH narrowly voted in favour of the derogation on Tuesday.
NFU chief livestock adviser Peter Garbutt, quoted by the Farmers Guardian, said it was a "victory for common sense" since most farmers, particularly those with larger flocks, would probably have gone down the electronic EID route. He said the three-year delay could save the UK sheep industry between £4m and 11.5m.
Sheep born after December 31, 2009 and retained for further breeding will still need to be individually electronically identified.

December 3rd 2011 ~ "The UK will not renew its vaccine bank when it expires next year but will instead rely on the EU bank, which has been 'substantially enlarged'..".

See Farmers Guardian. A spokesman from DEFRA told the FG that this was "in line with policy in many other Member States" and ensures the UK now has "access to a larger amount of vaccine and a greater number of antigens (15 rather than 11)" adding that this would not "impede decision making" in any way.
"Impede" might seem an odd verb to choose in the circumstances.
Does this mean that FMD vaccines will no longer be produced at Pirbright? Merial's Vaccine Centre at Pirbright, Surrey has long been the home to a number of important stores of FMD antigens - and the importance of this was recently commented on by Dr Jef Hammond, Head of the FMD Reference Laboratory at the UK's Institute for Animal Health
"as a vital part of any contingency planning for FMD outbreaks. They offer a flexible approach in which to provide rapid supplies of vaccine that best match the field situation."
It still seems outrageous to many of us that in 2007 the exact match for vaccine needed in the Surrey crisis was (hardly surprisingly) instantly available at Pirbright - and yet not used. Similarly, the protectionist mindset imposed by the EU in which vaccinated animals are still considered 2nd class animals seems woefully out of date. Differentiation between animals that might pose a carrier threat and those that are fully protected from the disease has been possible for some time. To depend on the EU bank for vaccines and to assert that the same speed of delivery could be maintained seems like rationalisation by those in the thrall of swingeing budget cuts now hoping fervently that another outbreak "will not happen". Hope rather than timely preparation and clear contingency planning is surely in the best interests of no one.

November 29th 2011 ~ Rural Payments Agency. Margaret Hodge and the PAC Committee not entirely impressed with Dame Helen Ghosh, it seems

Margaret Hodge, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee to Dame Helen, following another damning NAO report:
"...do you think it was right that all these people-the finance director and everybody else - left with compensation moneys and early retirement benefits that amounted to getting on for £500,000? ... I would put it to you that I think paying out that sort of money in bonuses and early retirement benefits to individuals who had cost us half a billion pounds in fines from the EU does not look to me like protecting the taxpayer's interest."
The corrected evidence is fascinating, shining a cold light on the gulf between positive, assertive bureaucratic spin and the reality of what was described by the Committee as a "dysfunctional organisation". As Margaret Hodge said:
"... don't let us kid ourselves that farmers are happy. The latest evidence we have is that four out of 10 farmers are dissatisfied with the RPA's performance, and a quarter are dissatisfied with the communication. That is not a place that any public service should be."
See more on RPA page

November 29th 2011 ~ DEFRA " invites your feedback and help in improving engagement with stakeholders"

For many readers of warmwell.com, DEFRA's ability to engage with and listen to "stakeholders" or communicate in clear English, has not perhaps been the first thing leaping to mind when one thinks of the Department. However, their survey, posted yesterday here, may perhaps be a first step to improved communication skills - even if it does seem largely concerned with something they, (surely rather unfortunately), refer to as "SD Scene". DEFRA has a separate website of that name about "sustainable development" - perhaps contradictory concepts to put together at a time when the global financial meltdown means that money for developing anything at all is going to be very, very tight.
Topics on the SD Scene site include "Addressing climate change in health and social care reforms" and "Understanding Walking and Cycling" (sic)
It would be unkind and unhelpful to suggest that all this is akin to fiddling while Rome burns. Others, however, may share frustration at the apparent reluctance in Government to warn the population that the coming crash is going to change our reasonably comfortable way of life - sooner rather than later - and for many decades. Only grass roots groups such as those in the Transition Network are quietly getting on with encouraging community-based resilience - i.e genuine sustainability. As Rob Hopkins says,
"Transition is a social experiment on a massive scale. What we are convinced of is this: (a) if we wait for the government, it'll be too little, too late; (b) if we act as individuals, it'll be too little; but (c) if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time"
More

November 25th 2011 ~ Dangerous Dogs Act is "at a very advanced stage” on being reformed

For those of us who believe in the concept of "Deed not Breed" when discussing dangerous dogs, it is depressing to know that the number of Staffordshire bull terriers taken in by the Battersea Dogs' Home has increased ninefold since 1996. It was reassuring, therefore, to hear James Paice tell the House of Commons yesterday that, while the Government is anxious to promote more responsible dog ownership and an announcement about this should be made early in the new year, Staffordshire Bull Terriers were not on the government's banned list and that most of the breed posed no threat to humans.
"I am happy to endorse that campaign, having been brought up as a child with bull terriers ..."
Hearing someone shout good humouredly "Romulus and Remus!" he added " I said with , not by"
" I entirely accept my hon. Friend's (Jane Ellison Conservative MP for Battersea ) contention that the vast majority of that breed are perfectly harmless."
See Hansard.

November 25th 2011 ~ "DEFRA should have achieved a 'higher level of financial maturity, given the resources spent', says NAO report

The department is criticised for consistently reporting a "significant" underspend against its Parliamentary estimate. Its forecasting "is not always accurate or robust", and it does not "fully understand the costs of its activities or plan and monitor robustly".
Amyas Morse, the head of the National Audit Office:
"The department should grasp the opportunity of its recently-launched change programme to instil good financial management across its business and deliver better value for money."
Read the report (pdf)

November 24th 2011 ~ UK farm antibiotic usage up 11% - "due to higher production" says DEFRA "We don't treat hogs because we don't have to," says Russ Kremer.

The Farmers Guardian reports that this increase follows a 4.6 % rise in 2010 - but that between 2004 and 2008 there had been a steady reduction. DEFRA, who says it takes the issue of antimicrobial resistance "very seriously", nevertheless shows complacency when saying that this rise in the use of veterinary pharmaceuticals merely reflects "higher productivity"
In 1989, a factory pig farmer from Missouri, Russ Kremer, was gored in the knee by a boar's tusk. His leg swelled dramatically, but not one of the six antibiotics doctors prescribed was able to cure him. He had contracted a mutated pathogen - the same drug-resistant form of strep that he had been treating his pigs for - with antibiotics. He says
"I realized that I was producing drug-resistant bacteria and putting it into our food system. I was distraught. I wanted to quit farming,"
Instead, he began again, farming rare breed pigs that have the run of his 150 open acres, rest in open, clean stalls, have all-natural feed, and are never injected with antibiotics.
"I set a strategic course for myself, looking at all the things I had done wrong, and all the things I could do right. In the first year alone I saved $16,000-$18,000 on vet and drug bills....Sustainability is an economic and social model of hope."
( In an extract from the acclaimed film "Fresh", Mr Kremer explains all this. You Tube)

November 21st ~ " a low-energy system...grass-finished herbivore is the most nutrient-dense substance that doesn't require any tillage..."

The interview Joel Salatin gave to Chris Martenson (mp3) These two are already heroes for many of us, telling us - urgently but with humour - the truths we need to know in the present ever more precarious times. Certain "green" assumptions are questioned and Joel Salatin explains how his farm was transformed to be regenerative and productive through his family's understanding of the way herbivores built soils in the first place and earthworm activity sustains us.
"...earthworms can eat a pound of stuff in their front end and send it through their alimentary canal, bring it out their back end, the same pound of stuff, and its like three times the calcium, seven times the nitrogen, eleven times the potassium, fourteen times the phosphorous, plus an elevating of all the whole trace elements, boron, cobalt, copper, molybdenum -- all those things are increased. And what's amazing is that nobody knows how that's done..."
We are now undergoing
"... unprecedented trials in the history of civilization, ... anybody under 50 today just can't even fathom a time where there were no TV dinners, no supermarkets, when we actually ate seasonally, when 50% of all the vegetables were produced in backyard gardens, when homes actually still had functioning larders - we don't even use the term larder today.
What we view today as normal, I argue, is simply not normal...we produced more nutrient density in what is now the U.S. 600 years ago than we actually do today, even with all of our petroleum and everything, So the whole secret of the nutrient cycling is to tap into the green material to capture more solar energy, put it into green material that can de-compose and go into the soil, and the best way to do that is with an herbivore -- lamb, goat, cow -- some sort of herbivore."
The entire transcript is here, it covers a great deal and is very, very good. Joel Salatin's new book is "Folks, This Ain't Normal." Chris Martenson's Crash Course is free to watch and is simply the best exposé of the present converging crises we have seen.

November 20th 2011 ~ Cattle to graze again on Cornish Downs

The BBC has reported that Cornwall Wildlife Trust has got the government to approve the re-introduction of cattle on one of Europe's rarest habitats - an area of common land in Cornwall known as Rosenannon Downs, near St Columb.
"Cattle were grazing on the downs before the 1960s and the trust hopes to reintroduce them back on the moor by next summer."
The Trust says their reintroduction will "reduce uncontrolled fires and benefit rare fritillary butterflies". However, the underlying importance of grazing has been eloquently pointed out by many, including the Countess of Cranbrook in an article for Country Life
"...grazing livestock provide us with wonderful meat, but they have a much wider significance. They are the guardians of our landscape. The mosaics of small fields, downland, heathland, fells, salt-marshes and most of our wildlife reserves all have to be grazed to maintain their beauty and biodiversity. Without livestock, they would revert either to arable cultivation or become abandoned thickets." Link and also here: The Importance of Grassland in Suffolk
(Those who think the euphemistically termed "zero-grazing" is acceptable, point to supposed evidence about emissions - but a Telegraph article over a year ago, reported on a study that found grazing cows or sheep could actually cut emissions. See also comment from West Country farmer just received)

November 18th 2011 ~ Antibiotics: "We had all been trained to turn to that little white bottle at the merest hint of trouble"

Helen Browning's Blog, always interesting, was devoted to the subject of a new report on the dangers of over using antibiotics, that the Soil Association has published in partnership with Compassion in World Farming and Sustain as part of the Alliance to Save our Antibiotics She writes
"....Truly the Soil Association's ethos of the interconnectedness of soil, animal and human health is writ large when you take a closer look at the use of antibiotics in agriculture.
Of course for individual farmers, reducing the reliance on antibiotics is a challenge, and I understand the nervousness that many of my farming colleagues feel about this. ...
...we realised that as long as we got our animal husbandry right - plentiful clean bedding, low stocking densities and stress, good hygiene at milking, and so on - then we really didn't need to use these drugs in anything like the quantities we had been. I reckon that in the dairy, we use about 5% of the antibiotics that we did before our organic days, and only when animals really are sick and in need of them. With our pigs, we hardly use any at all. . . perhaps one in 150 pigs will receive an antibiotic in its lifetime..."
Read in full

November 17th 2011 ~ movement licence computer chaos means thousands of cattle are unable to be moved, calves are being shot

Yet another government computer cock-up has resulted in vital paperwork approving the movement of cattle not being sent. Applications are having to be drafted manually by extra staff. According to Farmers Weekly today, the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency's system has broken down. Seamus Scallan, at the Wicklow Cattle Company, applied a week in advance to move 310 calves - and only 20 were processed. He is disgusted.
" We have farmers in Ireland waiting for those calves, and producers in the UK are having to shoot them as they can't keep them any longer. Every other country in the EU can process paperwork on the day."
Read full report at FWi. This sort of incident does not inspire confidence in the AHVLA's ability to maintain, as it says it can, " an emergency response capability to manage outbreaks of serious animal disease...."

November 15th 2011 ~ Factory hens "It really is unacceptable that the Commission is not able to enforce a regulation on animal welfare." Jim Paice

FWi reports
"Officials meeting in Brussels yesterday have again avoided any concrete action to enforce the conventional cage ban for laying hens, placing the businesses of millions of farmers in the UK and EU at risk of being undercut by cheap eggs from producers who haven't installed enriched cages.
The EU executive said at yesterday's meeting they will send letters to the 11 member states whose producers are expected not to be ready for the ban when it comes into force on 1 January 2012, asking them to update the commission on their progress in converting. ... representatives of the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom spoke, arguing against any derogation to the ban, while Portugal, one of the 11 non-compliant nations, argued the ban won't stop eggs from countries outside the EU, and outside the ban, being imported."
It is to be hoped that when Mr Paice meets representatives of the "UK egg sector" tomorrow they will find a way to ban illegal eggs unilaterally. If not, about 51 million unfortunate hens in the EU will still be in crammed into illegal cages and their eggs will still be coming into the UK in 2012. Many are pessimistic. On Twitter, Anthony Gibson said today, "Confusion reigns over whether govt is or is not going to ban illegal battery eggs from Jan 1. I'll believe it when it happens."

November 14th 2011 ~ DEFRA spent £70 million on redundancy payments but recruited 600 new staff

According to the Western Daily Press, a written answer to a Parliamentary question revealed that about 722 staff have left Defra and its executive agencies, costing just short of £29 million, since May 2010. The Western Daily Press deplores the fact that DEFRA has
".. managed to spend £70 million on redundancy payments at the same time as recruiting 600 new staff - despite a jobs freeze.
Since the General Election nearly 18 months ago the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has slashed 1,700 posts - but instead of re-deploying more staff has continued to hire new people. And each of those positions made redundant has on average cost the public purse £39,167..." More The paper comments: "..this disclosure will raise questions about whether the much-criticised department is a fit custodian of the countryside and has the clout to help struggling farmers."
(The Public Accounts Select Committee will be questioning Defra and Rural Payments Agency on the subject of their accounts at 3.15 pm today. See also RPA page and the Yorkshire Post on "Defra's decade of waste"
"It is sometimes forgotten that the prime reason for Defra's creation was that its predecessor, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, coped so badly with the foot-and-mouth outbreak of 10 years ago that its very name, Maff, became a byword for incompetence, inefficiency and waste."

November 14th 2011 ~ The EU has announced that it will cut spending on animal disease programmes by 45 million euros next year.

At the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health (SCoFCAH) meeting last week, officials said the budget cutswas owing to a reduction in disease prevalence, "as the result of successful programmes over the past year". Of the earmarked funds that exist, the major share of about €65m (£55.7m) goes to programmes fighting bTb in five Member States.
See article at www.meatinfo.co.uk

November 11th 2011 ~ European Commission's report on the impact of EU regulation for live animal transport shows that regulations are not being enforced

The existing EU regulation (Regulation 1/2005 on the protection of animals during transport) requires that maximum journey times are not exceeded and that transported animals are given breaks for rest, food and water - but, as Compassion in World Farming points out, this is not being enforced and many animals, including those sick and unfit, are still being transported over long distances in overcrowded vehicles with inadequate ventilation and insufficient headroom.
The Commission's report, - does not recommend changing legislation to improve matters for the animals - even though only several months ago, the EFSA Scientific Opinion Concerning the Welfare of Animals during Transport made it very clear that "humane handling during rearing and immediately prior to transport" was vital for animals being transported in order "to minimise aversive reactions"
One is constantly reminded of Ghandi's much quoted thought: "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated". Alan Bennett writing about the 2001 foot and mouth slaughter in Untold Stories (p293) remarked:
"In fifty years' time I am sure that we will not handle animals the way we do now - and to succeeding generations our behaviour will seem as barbarous as bear baiting...."

November 11th 2011 ~ The Farming and Forestry Improvement Scheme was launched by James Paice today

The scheme is part of Defra's Rural Development Programme for England and provides grants of between £2,500 and £25,000 to farmers, foresters, contractors and horticulturalists who can show that money would be used to improve the health and welfare of farm animals or save, recycle or reuse rainwater.. More

November 10th 2011 ~ A plea for the wisdom of humane simplicity: "Hamilton and his staff fell back on simple remedies recommended by old men who remembered what was done before the slaughter policy was introduced"

It may be interesting to recall how in 1923, 400 cattle, including the celebrated Eaton herd of dairy shorthorns, 300 sheep and 250 pigs, almost all pedigree stock, were successfully nursed through the foot and mouth outbreak of 1923-4. In 2001, Charles Clover wrote an article entitled: Old cowmen's cure saved duke's pedigree herd
The received wisdom (sic) is that recovered animals are irrevocably weakened. APHIS/USDA says " the disease leaves them debilitated. It also causes severe losses in the production of meat and milk" - but at the Royal Show of 1924 several previously infected dairy cows won prizes. A draft sale at Eaton that same July saw 77 lots of cattle achieve excellent prices, and Galloway steers who had been treated also made excellent carcasses (Whitlock 1969).
Interesting too, that Mr Aiden MacKenzie, (see bTB page for today) recalled studies from the 1930s showing that cattle raised on balanced soils yet boxed in with foot and mouth disease infected cattle, did not contract the disease. Other research, he claimed, proved the same in the 1950s with Tb and brucellosis.
"What I am telling you is not new science - it has been proven over 80 years, over and over again. It can be seen in humans with disease..."www.stuff.co.nz

November 9th 2011 ~ "Communications with farmers who are not paid early in the window must be improved now.." James Paice

Mr Paice has been talking to Parliament about the Rural Payments Agency. The statement was long and sounded as positive and confident as all such statements - but towards the end he did say:
"...as I discussed with leaders of farming representative bodies last week, there remains some distance to go before I could be happy that farmers are receiving the service they deserve. I am clear that further strides towards that goal must be made in the indicators that are set for subsequent years and that communications with farmers who are not paid early in the window must be improved now."
(Some might feel that "communications" might be improved if English rather than Civil Service code were used in such statements. How many, for example, immediately grasp the meaning of "early in the window"?)

November 8th 2011 ~ Australia " the minister is seeking better federal, state and industry cooperation in areas such as the development of uniform policy on vaccination and traceability issues."

Although Australia hasn't had an outbreak of FMD since 1872, foot and mouth disease continues to be a very contentious issue. Australian animals are not vaccinated which means that all herds and flocks are susceptible and vulnerable to the diseases that may be unwittingly (or even deliberately) introduced. In an outbreak, would healthy animals, including breeding stock, pregnant animals, young at foot and even pets, be killed in their thousands as they were in the UK in 2001?
Australia's Federal agriculture minister, Joe Ludwig, has written to his state and territory counterparts urging them to prioritise efforts to improve Australia's Foot and Mouth Disease response systems, after an independent review identified weaknesses in existing contingency measures. More at www.beefcentral.com
Interestingly, some of the most cheering ideas in recent times have come from Australia. In April 2010, the international FMD symposium in Melbourne concluded that there was a need for
"...better use of technology ... vaccination as a preferable FMD control strategy."
At that time, Australia's Weekly Times quoted Peter Milne, a member of the board of the Cattle Council of Australia. who said the 2001 UK outbreak had been
"a catalyst for action in Australia and the development of a national plan"

November 7th 2011 ~ Ten weed species in the USA are now resistant to Roundup. "Traditional breeding methods may yet prove to be better" Professor William Reville

William Reville of University College Cork told delegates at CropWorld that weed resistance to glyphosate has increased fivefold since 2007 and is developing at a rate of one new weed species each year. (See FWi reporting on Day 2 of the CropWorld conference)
In September, a Reuters article estimated that 11 million acres of the US are infested with "super weeds". Monsanto's Roundup system
"encouraged farmers to alter time-honored crop rotation practices and the mix of herbicides that previously had kept weeds in check."
As so often proves in the end to be the case, complicated man-made solutions to problems often result in even bigger problems. Lee Van Wychen, director of science policy at the Weed Science Society of America and quoted by Reuters is pessimistic:"It is only going to get worse."
FWI quotes Professor Reville:" herbicide development has slowed since GM was introduced. There's only a limited number of herbicides available and natural selection is a factor with all of them. Traditional breeding methods may yet prove to be better."

November 7th 2011 ~ "Government insolvency and the slow hand of bureaucracy" always seem to stand in the way...

The readable blog by John Ward, hat4uk.wordpress.com, yesterday quoted virus hunter, Ian Lipkin, (who was the technical consultant on the film "Contagion".)
"We're being asked to analyse 10,000 [virus] samples a year. We've discovered at least 400 new viruses since I came to Columbia in 2002, and the process is accelerating."
At least 30 previously unknown disease agents have been identified since 1973. Twenty already well-known diseases - including TB, malaria, and cholera - have re-emerged or spread in more virulent and drug-resistant forms. This year, a new strain of Ebola virus was found in a bat in Spain - the first time the virus has been seen beyond Black Africa. Lipkin says,
"We can and must reduce the several months required to create and test a vaccine before beginning large-scale production and distribution."
As the blog points out, better coordination is needed between local, federal and international agencies - but
"civil servants have never been any good at this: they're usually too busy protecting their own turf to suggest anything more efficient"
A view that we have heard all too often in the past ten years since the UK authorities chose, in the 2001 and 2007 foot and mouth crises, not to allow the use of already proven vaccines and rapid diagnostics to protect national herds, flocks, farmers and rural communities.

November 5th 2011 ~ "Research findings say that dirty, crowded conditions on factory farms can propagate sickness and disease..."

A study carried out by the Worldwatch Institute's "Nourishing the Planet" project for Vital Signs Online points out (perhaps unnecessarily since it is surely self evident) that diseases spread more easily in crowded, unnatural conditions. 75% of the antibiotics used on livestock worldwide, it claims, are not absorbed by the animals and are excreted in waste, posing a serious risk to public health. It also spells out the advantages to human beings of a moderate meat diet and pasture fed, free ranging livestock :
" ... Eating organic, pasture-raised livestock can alleviate chronic health problems and improve the environment. Grass-fed beef contains less fat and more nutrients than its factory-farmed counterpart and reduces the risk of disease and exposure to toxic chemicals. Well-managed pasture systems can improve carbon sequestration, reducing the impact of livestock on the planet. And the use of fewer energy-intensive inputs conserves soil, reduces pollution and erosion, and preserves biodiversity.." Read in full at blogs.worldwatch.org

November 4th 2011 ~ South Derbyshire council has refused Midland Pig Producers permission to build a "farm" at Foston to keep 25,000 sows and piglets in intensive conditions.

The Foston scheme attracted huge opposition - an online national petition got 10000 signatures and the Health Protection Agency told the Council:
"..recent research has found that those living up to 150m downwind of an intensive swine farming installation could be at risk of adverse human health effects associated with exposure to multi- drug resistant organisms.."
The QC, Michael Mansfield, did not mince his words and told the Council
"Should the proposed pig prison go ahead, most of the animals will never see sunlight or breathe fresh air until the day they are loaded onto a lorry bound for the abattoir."
Unfortunately however, Powys County Council has ignored evidence provided by their own planning officers, and has voted 6-5 in favour of a 1000 cow mega-dairy. The intention is for the dairy to be built next door to a school in Welshpool. See www.walesonline.co.uk And BBC


November 3rd 2011 ~ Paraguay's head of National Service for Animal Health and Quality: "There now is no doubt that it was human error that led to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth."

Paraguay's beef exports - mainly to China, Russia, Israel, Venezuela and Brazil, constitute its second most important source of revenue. The outbreak in September led to the destruction of hundreds of animals and to very serious economic losses.
According to Agence France-Presse the outbreak was caused by "human error and negligence" during the vaccine production process - in other words, the animals were injected with a botched vaccine.
Shortly before the September outbreak, Paraguay had been granted countrywide "FMD-free with vaccination" status - now lost. See also www.montrealgazette.com
Although there has been no suggestion of sabotage, one is reminded of Roger Breeze's words at the March Conference in Washington DC about deliberate infection:
"As far as agricultural bio terrorism is concerned, I've come to believe over time that it's only the way we've chosen to respond to these natural disease outbreaks in the past that allows terrorists to threaten us with them in the future.
If we didn't have this theatre of mass slaughter and burning and burial there really wouldn't be any point in a biological attack on agriculture. It would be completely irrelevant."

November 1st 2011 ~ Bucking the negative trend in real time on-site diagnostics "...people no longer have to be dependent on Government...." Roger Breeze

The 2011 conference "Life Science Trends Worth Watching" (Panel discussion) held March 3, 2011, in Washington, DC.  
 
Having told the audience that for 25 years there has been a sustained failure to transform advances in science and technology to real tools for diagnosis on the ground, Dr Breeze pointed out that President Obama's "tremendous goals" are being let down by this. For far too long, disease reporting - "official, cumbersome, disease reporting systems" is being superseded by cell phone based ones, giving
"..the first person to turn up at the site of a problem, the ability to investigate, do a state of the art detection, and report the information in close to real time. So this has been happening all around us - mostly outside Government - happening in the private sector - which is why this is all so important. And people no longer have to be dependent on Government actually giving them access to reagents. You have got the reagent because you have got a sequence on the internet and you can actually do all this yourself."
See Youtube video and warmwell transcript here.

November 1st 2011 ~ Cattle parasite vaccine offers hope to world's poorest farmers

An intriguing idea is the development, by the University of Edinburgh's School of Biological Sciences in collaboration with Moredun, of a "harmless parasite" that may be able to carry vaccine into the bloodstream of cattle.
"...Researchers created the vaccine by inserting key genetic material from a vaccine into the parasite's DNA. The manipulated parasite is intended to be injected into cattle, where it would continue to thrive in their bloodstreams, releasing small amounts of vaccine slowly over time. The treatment could offer long-term protection against common conditions such as foot-and-mouth disease or bovine tuberculosis, as well as a range of other diseases." www.eurekalert.org
Scientists say this could be adapted to carry medicines as well as vaccines, to deliver drug treatments against common cattle diseases.

November 1st 2011 ~ FMD back in South Korea? (No)

An editorial of the Korea Times, published just 3 days before the reported detection on 31st Oct 2011 of a new outbreak:
"Last year's [2010] FMD crisis was a man-made disaster. Now, man-made precautionary measures must be taken. Repeating the same mistake would be a political minefield for the ruling camp ahead of next year's [2012] National Assembly and presidential elections."
ProMed comments that this: " looks like clairvoyance on the part of the editor". It will be remembered that the outbreaks of FMD and Avian influenza in South Korea resulted in the death and destruction of 9.7 million cattle, pigs and poultry last winter. Eventually and very belatedly, the authorities allowed- and indeed demanded - vaccination against FMD. See below
UPDATE According to S Korea's agriculture ministry, the suspicious case has turned out not to be FMD despite the suspicious symptoms shown by one of 14 cows at a farm in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province.

October 14th 2011 ~ FMD paper: "a breath of cool air in an over-heated arena of epidemiology populated by clean-shod computer nerds without field experience...." says ProMed

ProMed today on "Destructive tension: mathematics versus experience --the progress and control of the 2011 foot and mouth disease epidemic in Great Britain". Rev. Sci. Tech. Off. Int. Epiz, 2011: 30(2): 483-98;Ref: Mansley LM, Donaldson AI, Thrusfield MV, Honhold N: available at http://web.oie.int/boutique/extrait/10mansley483498.pdf
Extract: "The models that supported the contiguous culling policy were severely flawed, being based on data from dissimilar epidemics; used inaccurate background population data, and contained highly improbable biological assumptions about the temporal and quantitative parameters of infection and virus emission in infected herds and flocks."
Summary in full on warmwell.com's dedicated Foot and Mouth page. (The full paper pdf file is here.)

September 28th 2011 ~ India is suing Monsanto for "Biopiracy"

India's action is an attempt to protect its living species and the livelihoods of its farmers.
The government is suing multi-national Monsanto and its Indian collaborators for "biopiracy," accusing the company of stealing India's indigenous plants (in this case eggplants , or brinjal) in order to develop genetically modified versions of them, without giving any compensation back to the local people or nation where the plant originally came from. (More on the history of Bt Brinjal)
This video today on France 24 (in English) by Vikram Singh may be of great interest to those who are fearful of food itself becoming the private property of the multinationals. In spite of their defeat over eggplants, and undeterred by huge outrage in India, Monsanto is continuing to try to develop other GM crops to be sold as its own commodities. Monsanto refused to cooperate with Vikram Singh's report. (See also GM page)

September 27th 2011~ Lab closures: "Such a decision affects animal health and human health. This seems a huge backward step."

On the subject of the proposed AHVLA laboratory closures, expert virologist, Dr Ruth Watkins, writes today:
"If the VLA labs at Carmarthen and Aberystwyth close there will be none in Wales.
There is no Veterinary School of Medicine in Wales.
Where would I take any animal for post mortem? I could never get another post mortem on a calf, sheep, lamb, hen and so on. What would happen to the standard of veterinary medicine in Wales when there were no such checks, found to be essential in human medicine, and of course for veterinary medicine too.
Probably FMD diagnosis would be little affected as samples from sick animals where FMD is suspected are couriered to Pirbright. But what about avian flu in chickens, salmonella deaths in lambs, and all the other diagnoses not confirmed in life or not suspected that are made post mortem that affect the management of one's animals, farm and domestic? Such a decision affects animal health and human health. This seems a huge backward step.
Other informed comment very welcome (email)

September 27th 2011~ "We want to bring money down to earth."

AT a time when banks are earning huge profits from food speculation in unregulated financial markets, and amidst all the current alarming financial Sturm und Drang comes an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about "Slow Money". This is an attempt to look at investment
"through the lens of food, soil and place......new ways to rebuild trust and to support millions of small acts of entrepreneurial care. Saving farmland, supporting a new generation of small and mid-size organic farmers, rebuilding local and regional food processing and distribution"
David Gutnick, of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation says,
"Combine poisonous factory-farm tomatoes with disgraced investment banker Bernard Madoff. Throw in a stock market disaster. You get a public spooked by the dangers of industrial food production and investors wary of risky business. This may be the recipe for a Slow Money revolution."
More about Slow Money.

September 27th 2011~ "Slow Food" - a global, grassroots organization with supporters in 150 countries

Slow Money is not to be confused with (but is similar to in many ways) the international movement "Slow Food" a group of 100,000 members worldwide, supporting small-scale production of good foods. A current project is to create a thousand food gardens in schools, villages and on the outskirts of cities in 25 African countries.
A non-profit member-supported association, Slow Food was "founded in 1989 to counter the rise of fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people's dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world." (More)

September 26th 2011 ~ Lab closures: savings made would be vastly and disastrously outweighed by the potential cost of failing to detect Foot & Mouth or dangerous zoonoses

The Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) whose role is
"to help safeguard animal health and welfare and public health, protect the economy and enhance food security through research, surveillance and inspection"
plans to close labs at Langford, Aberystwyth, Truro, Thirsk, Wincester, Luddington, Carmarthen and Preston by April 2013. But that such closures will make Britain more vulnerable to another foot and mouth outbreak is the view of Paul Roger, a positive force for sanity in the horrors of 2001. Now president of the Yorkshire Veterinary Society, Mr Roger says that this is a plan taken without consultation with industry experts. He told the Ripon Gazette:
" ...If you remove those people and their specialist knowledge, you remove part of the investigation team and you stand more chance of missing things. That has implications not only for animal health, but public health also ... .. not only do you risk devaluing the service locally, but it raises questions about the quality of the surveillance across the country for identifying diseases and the entry of new diseases."
These closures, if they go ahead, could save £2.4m a year. The savings made would be vastly and disastrously outweighed by the potential cost of failing to detect diseases such as FMD (especially since the UK makes no provision for the new technology of rapid diagnosis done on-farm in its Contingency Plan.) To put the sum in perspective, £2.9m was the sum spent by the RPA merely on "external consultants" last year and one remembers the bill topping £500 million (sic) revealed by the NAO as the full cost of the bungled handling of the Single Payment Scheme - fines (or, more euphemistically, "Disallowance Penalties") DEFRA must pay the European Commission. Interestingly, it is the MP for Thirsk and Malton herslef, Anne McIntosh, who as Chairman of EFRA said that bonuses at the RPA should be halted until performance improves. See RPA pages

September 23rd 2011 ~ EFRA Committee welcomes the findings of the Task Force on Farming Regulation. Government officials would benefit from "hands-on experience".

Set up over a year ago, the Farming Regulation Task Force concluded that DEFRA needs to establish an entirely new approach to regulation. It recommended a commitment to start from non-regulatory approaches and to establish a more risk-based approach to regulation and enforcement. The EFRA report, published today wants the Task Force's recommendations to be implemented without delay.
Many warmwell readers will heartily endorse EFRA's view that DEFRA should effect a
"far-reaching regulatory culture change [moving] from an environment where the default is to regulate to an approach based on trust, responsibility and partnership."
(A FWi article on the Shadow DEFRA Minister Mary Creagh, yesterday asked her "When was the last time you went on a farm?")
The EFRA Select Committee's report recommends that:
"... Defra should also assess which of its existing EU-derived regulations have been 'gold-plated' and identify options for swiftly de-gilding them......Officials within DEFRA and its agencies need to appreciate the impact of regulatory decisions on farming enterprises, particularly small businesses that may be facing other financial pressures or uncertainty.
DEFRA should consider whether a programme of hands-on experience with farming businesses targeted at the relevant staff would lead to improved policy-making and how this could be delivered."
Read the Report here or its Conclusions and recommendations

September 23rd 2011 ~ Fat profits from Trans Fats - "our Government remains inert"

So-called "trans fats" - those fats beloved by the food industries because they are cheap - increase the risk of coronary heart disease by raising levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol and lowering levels of "good" HDL cholesterol.
Britain, while it has been more and more 'health and safety' crazy in recent years, tying up farmers in red tape in the apparent cause of food safety, cannot seem to bring itself to intervene between UK food manufacturers and their profits. But we have the good example of New York legislation, introduced in 2006, which has resulted in trans fats disappearing from New York restaurant tables. An article in today's Independent by Andreas Whittam Smith concludes:
"This is the sort of action food manufacturers are going to have to learn to live with. For the health lobby is going to keep striking them hard. And sooner or later, the British Government will wake up."

September 21st 2011 ~ Supermarket Watchdog is a top priority, Ed Davey telsl the Liberal Democrat conference

See Blog
"....He called it a 'vote winner', which chimes with ActionAid's poll finding that 8 out of 10 shoppers want a regulator to stop supermarkets bullying farmers.
Ed Davey's speech matters because the government has a crammed parliamentary agenda, so there's a danger that the draft supermarkets bill could fall by the wayside. ..." Read in full
Warmwell.com's previous posts on the Grocery Ombudsman here.

September 21st 2011 ~ Inspirational American teacher ordered to dismantle his garden before Friday

The world is finally waking up to the fact that we are on the edge of a financial and social abyss and only a new sense of community responsibility has a chance of keeping society from some very unwelcome changes indeed. An American maths teacher, Adam Guerrero, has transformed his own front and back gardens into productive areas; he keeps bees, makes vermicompost, produces biofuel, and makes soap with the byproducts of biofuel production.
And he takes local students to the garden and teaches them these skills.
All this is done in the teacher's own time, on his own property, after spending all day teaching. An inspiring trailblazer, one would think.
No. In Memphis, Tennessee, this teacher is considered by officialdom to be a public nuisance and he has been ordered to dismantle his garden before his court date on Friday (23rd September).
There is an online petition you can sign at change.org in support of the garden. The petition will be sent to the judge hearing Guerrero's case. Could we help to get this petition up to 5000 signatures? Mr Guerrero is evidently an inspirational teacher and is showing the way to the community sense of responsibility we need at a time when our governments and officials seem to have forgotten whom they are there to serve. Read in full
UPDATE: 9/23/11: The Memphis Flyer reports on today's hearing, saying that "the future is bright.....Judge Potter also advocated finding a piece of blighted property for Guerrero to devote to an educational garden. The City of Memphis is currently working to identify vacant land where Guerrero could grow a community garden.."

September 18th 2011 ~ "a virus out there that kills 50% of the people it infects... I predict people will wake up to the need for vaccination pretty quickly...": Robert Webster, the "pope of bird flu"

Pandemics begin when viruses that affect species such as birds and pigs "reassort" to form a new strain, against which human beings have no immunity. Although scepticism about the threat of a flu pandemic is, according to the Guardian, "at an all-time high", highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza appears to be spreading into Eurasia again just at the very time when backyard poultry is even more vital for feeding the world.
" In the absence of better data, the only way to be safe is to vaccinate ducks too, but in China, where backyard poultry farms are vital to the rural economy and ducks range freely in paddy fields, vaccination is anathema to most farmers."
The expert virologist, Robert Webster, a fellow of the Royal Society, has realised that ducks can carry the virus while remaining healthy. He continues,"When bird flu gets to the US, however, I predict people will wake up to the need for vaccination pretty quickly ....What people don't appreciate is that H5N1 has already been the cause of a chicken apocalypse. Once it learns to go human to human there'll be no stopping the damn thing." Read article

September 16th 2011 ~ Lord Henley moves to the Home Office. Lord Taylor of Holbeach takes over

Lord Taylor of Holbeach has been appointed as the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. www.theyworkforyou.com gives succinct and useful details about his positions and voting record in the House of Lords. (He was a Shadow DEFRA Minister from January 2007 to July 2009)

September 16th 2011 ~ The healthcare costs incurred by the current system of cheap food may bring about reforms sooner than we think

An article in The Nation by Michael Pollan shows how disappointingly little has been achieved in protecting "farmers and ranchers at the mercy of a small handful of processors..." in the US.
"...cheap food has become a pillar of the modern economy that few in government dare to question. And many of the reforms we need - such as improving conditions in the meat industry and cleaning up feedlot agriculture - stand to make meat more expensive. That might be a good thing for public health, but it will never be popular.."
However, it's the public health implications of a bad diet that is creating powerful allies on the side of food reform. Just as with the anti- tobacco lobby, the healthcare system and the insurance industry who face huge bills may prove even stronger upholders of healthy food of than those who understand the ethics, biology and science. When
"continuing to eat in a way that undermines health, soil, energy resources and social justice cannot be sustained without eventually leading to a breakdown"
means a massive loss of money, things happen. Radical reform cannot come too soon for decent US farmers such as Mike Callicrate who deplores the way sustainable farming is being attacked more than ever while the US government turns a blind eye to the pollution and welfare violations of big industrial operations. The EPA is threatening Callicrate by declaring his winter hay stock a "pollutant". In fact, any manure produced on his farm feeds the soil there and there is no run-off. Mike Callicrate's website is making an engaging stand on behalf of those not "in bed with the big meat packers".

September 15th 2011 ~ Andrew George says the Grocery Ombudsman draft Bill won't be heard by MPs until the 2012-13 parliamentary session.

He says,
"It has been a lot of work to get MPs on side because they were sceptical of over-regulation, but this is a regulation that is essential. We are talking about suppliers and farmers being pushed to the margin because of the pressure being put on them by over-powerful supermarkets using bully-boy tactics....Every week the government fails to act, farmers are finding themselves in more difficulty."
See article at FWI.
We have been following this story with increasing frustration since March 2009. See Grocery Ombusdman page.

September 15th 2011 ~ BVA Congress at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on Friday 23 September

"Policies from Europe drive much of our UK animal health and welfare activity," says the BVA. Their conference has as its theme "Vets in a changing world"
Professor Sheila Crispin will talk about Dog breeding - where is it going?
Chief Veterinary Officer at the FAO, Dr Juan Lubroth, will be addressing "Global food security - vets at the leading edge of new developments?"
With future veterinary students paying £45 - 54k in fees alone, Professor Richard Bennett, chairman of the Veterinary Development Council (VDC) and agricultural economist, will be asking if vets are providing the services required by farmers and should they be doing more to meet the business needs of food producers.
Professor Peter Roeder, former Secretary of the Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme at FAO, will deliver the Wooldridge Memorial Lecture on how vets make an impact on disease control on a global scale.

September 13th 2011 ~ UK food manufacturers, distributors and growers "deeply concerned" about the fragility of the UK food sector. We must have Home Grown solutions

It does at last seem to be becoming clear to many that our reliance on imports makes the UK extremely vulnerable. The Farmers Guardian quotes Laura Sandys MP:
"Protectionism, climatic shocks and changing diets globally are exacerbating a system that is already very fragile. We have been deluded over decades by cheap food...our weak pound places us in an even more vulnerable position.
There is much that Government can do to help us mitigate the impacts of food price rises, or at least hedge the extreme volatility in prices....We have to start to develop some home grown solutions to a global political issue that our electorate will be reminded of every time they sit down to eat." Read in full.
To achieve secure, sustainable food supplies over the next decades, the UK needs more people in agriculture and yet there is a serious shortage of available skills. We learn from a Memorandum submitted by The Soil Association to the EFRA Committee two years ago that the
"UK has historically failed to take advantage of EU schemes providing grants to enable young people to set up in farming.... the average annual take-up of such schemes stood at 24-31,000 people, with France alone accounting for 40% of the scheme. UK take-up was 0%."
In the past, County Council tenancies provided a key "first rung on the farming ladder", but successive Governments have either encouraged or forced Councils to dispose of their farming estate. (See Guardian)

September 13th 2011 ~ The British Equine Veterinary Association honours Brigadier Paul Jepson

Many of us are particularly grateful to Brigadier Jepson for the skill and humane leadership he has brought to the government and equine industry Working Party on African Horse Sickness. When in 2010 DEFRA agreed to put £190,000 per year into a three-year project to develop a new effective vaccine, Brigadier Jepson said:
"This takes us a giant step forward to where we want to be. Ultimately, the aim is to have such a reliable vaccine that we can almost stop worrying about AHS - which is a real threat and could be absolutely devastating."
More on our AHS page
We now see from www.vetsonline.com that "The BEVA Welfare Award 2011 has been presented to Brigadier Paul Jepson in recognition of his contributions to equine welfare, not only as a vet and previous chief executive of the Horse Trust but also as the driving force behind strategic plans for disease management and control in the UK." The British Equine Veterinary Association award, sponsored by The Blue Cross, was presented to Brigadier Jepson during BEVA Congress in Liverpool on September 9, 2011.

September 12th 2011 ~ "Ordinary farmers are being railroaded into thinking that bigger is better and they must go intensive to survive. I firmly contest that belief," says Dragons Den star, Deborah Meaden

The World Society for the Protection of Animals' (WSPA) Not in my Cuppa campaign was set up in February 2010 to fight Nocton Dairies' application for an 8,100 dairy unit. Co-written by the Somerset dairy farm manager, Neil Darwent, who is also a Nuffield scholar, their briefing "Weighing up the Economics of Dairy Farms" was published on Friday. It "offers a third option to the much touted ‘get big or get out' argument" put forward by those euphemistically promoting 'sustainable intensification'. Deborah Meaden is quoted in support of the briefing and says mega-dairies are based on "high-risk economic guesswork".
The briefing calls for a focus on the potential of grass-based systems,
"not out of some romantic yearning for yesteryear, but because there is an achievable and smart business model built on pasture. it is economically sustainable in the truest sense of the word."
WSPA is calling on the government, the NFU, and other bodies set up to protect dairy farmers' interests, to back smaller-scale dairy farmers and "not walk into the blinding light of the mega-dairy". Read the report's conclusions(html) and see also the excellent FWi article.

September 9th 2011 ~ Tim Farron's PQ expresses his worry that the reduction in resources to AHVLA affects the UK's capability "to detect and prevent a foot and mouth outbreak"

In reply, James Paice could only reiterate the Government's constant get-out clause; "The primary responsibility for the detection and prevention of foot and mouth disease (FMD) rests with the animal keeper." (See Hansard)
"Detection and PREVENTION"? Relying entirely on farmers may be the cheap option but it means that the disease is already showing visible clinical signs and so may have spread far and wide. Farmers have no control over non-endemic pathogens such as the foot and mouth virus in today's world of rapid global travel and trade. They can't run surveillance at borders and airports nor set the rules that might more effectively rule out a disease incursion.
Once again, we can only point to these practical recommendations on the subject of Industry Cost Sharing - a plan that advocates Performance Benchmarks on both sides - the farming industry and Government. Extract:
"... The government shall ensure that sufficient laboratory capability and capacity exist to perform all diagnostic and differential diagnostic tests during and after an outbreak in a timely manner."
Read paper "Industry Cost Sharing" in full and see report of closure fears
The closures are expected to save £2.4 million a year. Estimated financial costs of FMD 2001, according to the NAO (pdf) : " direct cost to the public sector is estimated at over £3 billion and the cost to the private sector is estimated at over £5 billion."

September 9th 2011 ~ As UK house prices begin their catastrophic fall, farmland increases in value and cannot keep up with demand

The rural chartered surveyors and property consultants, Smiths Gore, today says:
"..Farmland prices have gone up by another 2% since 30 June according to the latest figures from Smiths Gore's Research Department. The total price increase this year is an incredible 10%.
Equipped farms values (farms with houses) are outperforming bare land sales.
There are a number of regional variations with the North West seeing a 46% increase in supply whereas the East Midlands area has witnessed a drop in supply of 34%. .." Read in full
(What can be inferred from this? Is it that newcomers to farming want to cash in on high commodity prices? Or is it that people already in the know understand that there are hard times coming in which he who can grow and control the food in a country whose imports have become precarious in the wake of the economic global meltdown will be in a strong position - while those who cannot, will not?) But disgracefully low prices that are forcing decent farmers to give up are not yet being properly addressed - nor are agricultural earnings of the workers which are consistently about 20% lower than other industrial counterparts (Reading ECIFM pdf) But, as Johann Tasker has pointed out today (Twitter) it's hard for farmers to increase wage rates of employees when input costs (fert, fuel etc) are rising so rapidly, and double-digit ag-inflation means farm input costs are currently outstripping any increase in food prices.

September 8th 2011 ~ Tim Farron's EDM calls on DEFRA to ensure that hill farmers on short-term land agreements are able to access support.

Mr Farron is Chair of the All Party group on Hill Farming and President of the Liberal Democrats. See Early Day Motion 2148
"That this House notes the importance of upland farming to UK agriculture, the rural economy, countryside access and the UK's landscape heritage, but acknowledges the very low incomes of many upland farmers; welcomes the new Upland Entry Level Scheme (UELS) but is concerned by figures that show that 34 per cent. of hill farmers who received payments through the predecessor scheme, the Hill Farm Allowance, are not in the new UELS; further notes that one barrier to entry is that many tenant farmers are on short-term land agreements and are thus ineligible for payments through the UELS, forcing them to rely solely on the Single Farm Payment; and calls on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to make the necessary changes to ensure that hill farmers on short-term land agreements are able to access support."
In an interview with FWi, Tim Farron, then Shadow DEFRA Secretary, said that the DEFRA establishment was" well-meaning but utterly ill-informed and disconnected from rural Britain and farming in particular."
"It's crazy that farmers are being dictated to by bureaucrats, especially when they're the ones who are left to pick up the pieces from the government's mistakes. If we want British farming to continue to be the best and most entrepreneurial in the world, then we must put farmers at the heart of policy decision making."

September 7th 2011 ~ ProMed on the new FMD outbreak in China: " if "stamping out, no vaccination" policy is indeed and exclusively applied, its efficiency deserves to be revisited in view of the fact that new outbreaks continue to appear.."

According to the WAHIS report, the Tibet farm included 1744 susceptible cattle, of which 6 were cases, 6 died, and 1738 were destroyed. The ProMed comment shows some understandable bafflement since China's annual report for 2010 apparently says that routine vaccination is included among the control measures against FMD in cattle, sheep/goats and swine. ProMed says
"A clarification, and -- in case vaccination is applied -- numbers of vaccinated animals and information on the vaccination status in affected farms, are requested.
On the other hand, if "stamping out, no vaccination" policy is indeed and exclusively applied, its efficiency deserves to be revisited in view of the fact that new outbreaks continue to appear more than one and a half year after the start of the epizootic, covering vast parts of China."
Read ProMed posting

September 7th 2011 ~ "There is no change proposed for these tests."

The announcement that there are serious proposals to close laboratories in eight of the 14 regional centres run by the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) comes with a denial from an AHVLA spokesman that site closures are designed to generate savings.
He said that "consolidating" laboratories would not affect testing services.
"Many tests now require dedicated equipment and expertise with strict quality assurance, so are not provided locally. There is a courier network to move samples around overnight. A recent survey showed that farmers and vets are satisfied with the service...For serious notifiable diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease, avian influenza or bTB, testing is already centralised because of the high containment and specialist expertise required. There is no change proposed for these tests."
As Roger Breeze has said portable on-farm real time PCR testing was developed "a decade ago to provide laboratory standard state of the art detection linked to a Command and Control System via the wireless internet".
It seems quite extraordinary that ten years on from the worst foot and mouth crisis ever seen in Britain that the UK is still saying that the only official FMD testing must continue to be done centrally, using "couriers". If it had been mandated in the Contingency Plan that all suspected FMD cases were to be tested by PCR on farm Miyazaki would have at least a 10 day start on trying to halt the outbreak while it was still small. This would have meant minimal slaughter and minimal use of ring vaccination.

September 5th 2011 ~ In a corporate-owned quasi democracy where will houses be built?

We have until October 17th to respond to the Government's draft consultation for its National Planning Policy Framework (pdf here). Apparently the Government is shocked by the reaction of respected bodies such as CPRE (It "poses a huge threat to the countryside") and the National Trust ("Government reforms threaten green spaces")
A study of the choice of language at crucial points of proposed government policy is always interesting. Why, for example, has the word "genuinely" crept in here?
"....identify land which it is genuinely important to protect from development, for instance because of its environmental or historic value"
In Opposition (July 2008), the Conservatives lamented that in spite of there being 750,000 empty homes, Labour still wanted :
"..ever more housing stock to be built ... despite the Labour party's supposedly environmental concerns on greenfield rather than brownfield sites - there are, right now, around three quarters of a million empty properties across the UK - and that is before the anticipated rapid growth in properties subject to repossession as mortgages go unpaid..."
The present Coalition argument that new building is so urgently needed it may need to use hitherto protected land looks consequently rather thin.
One is perhaps tempted to tell the Planning Minister and anyone else who thinks policies are ever "genuinely" to protect the environment, "It's the economy, stupid."
UPDATE CPRE's press release:"..... The Government's proposals to skew the planning system in favour of economic development at the expense of environmental and social considerations are unlikely to result in more development, just more poor quality development on greenfield land."

September 5th 2011 ~ Removing "infected or potentially infected" animal bodies - the "Invitation to Tender" PDF is 98 pages long

The Government evidently expects large numbers of "potentially infected" animals to be killed in the event of FMD returning to the UK. After ten long years since the trauma of the 2001 chaos, the availability of pre-clinical sign rapid diagnostics and speedily available vaccines, this is very hard to contemplate - as are the 98 pages of the Carcase Disposal and Transport - Contingency Contract
UPDATE September 6th 2011 ~ DEFRA's" Invitation to Tender" (35,604 words) the legal language of which is dense to the point of incomprehensibility, includes several references to the Official Secrets Act, reminding us of how it was reported in 2001 that many farmers caught up in the horrors of FMD were made to sign the OSA. National Security?
Please read our suggestions for a common sense future policy for foot and mouth control.

September 2nd 2011 ~ "some of the rules we ask businesses to follow are either too complicated, ineffective or just obsolete." Jim Paice

He is quoted on www.businessgreen.com in an article about the Cabinet Office's "Red Tape Challenge". This will focus on DEFRA as part of efforts to streamline some of the 287 environmental regulations. Mr Paice said, "There are also other ways of providing environmental protection that don't require regulation, which is why we want to hear ideas for doing things differently without affecting our responsibilities to the natural world."

September 2nd 2011 ~EID extended: "the excessive administrative burden has been criticised for the labour costs and the potential implications for cross-compliance payments"

The Farmers Guardian reports on the European Commission's decision on Tuesday to press ahead with the introduction of an electronic identification system for bovine animals "on a voluntary basis". Kim Haywood of the NBA expressed concern about the cost of the technology involved and urged grants for farmers while Nigel Miller (NFUS), expressing hope that proposals could spell the end for cattle passports and on-farm herd registrations, said cautiously, " We await more detail from the EU Commission on both of these aspects."
At present, the idea is that such EID for bovines in the European Union should be "voluntary".
It will be remembered that NAIS, the US National Animal Identification System, also began as a voluntary idea but it soon became clear that factory farms would have been be able to identify whole groups with a single number, while small family farms, using humane methods, would have had to identify each animal individually.
After widespread alarm and objection, NAIS was finally dropped in February 2010 and a much simpler "low tech" system is now on the cards from USDA. Even so, Joel Salatin's view is that,
"the answer is not some BIG new regulatory agency, the answer is to force the industry to compete with viable, economically viable and transparent viable local food commerce. ... The answer is not a top down answer, it's a bottom up answer."
Industrial agriculture with its high tech methods and dependence on oil has led to corporate- friendly agricultural policies with only a profit motive evident. This is looking more and more dangerous. The coming end of cheap energy is going to see the end of 'business as usual' food production but we need time to prepare. That means fostering the skills of our grandfathers' generation when farming didn't pollute the soil, did provide work to many people, and produced healthy food.

September 2nd 2011 ~ "The federal government gives permission to the blatant and massive pollution of companies like BP, Exxon Mobile, Tyson, Cargill, JBS and Smithfield..."

The Big Food lobby seems quite deliberately to be attempting to force small farmers out of business. This is the view of American farmers such as Mike Callicrate and A.J. Jones, two of the United States' leading advocates of sustainable family farm agriculture.
"Mike and A.J. produce good food from their environmentally beneficial, humane, and sustainable farming and ranching operation. Mike is also a long-time outspoken critic of the industrial, big food cartel that continues to drive family farmers and ranchers off the land as they take more and more control of our government and our food supply."
They have now been singled out and threatened with massive fines because the American EPA claims they are guilty of violations of the Clean Water Act . As Mr Callicrate says on his blog:
"The federal government gives permission to the blatant and massive pollution of companies like BP, Exxon Mobile, Tyson, Cargill, JBS and Smithfield, and instead, without due process, goes after environmentally friendly family farms and ranches, producing healthy local foods, like Callicrate."
As illustration he shows aerial photographs of BS & Cargill industrialised feedyards - all very close to rivers- compared to Callicrate Cattle Co. where the river is 3.5 miles away.

August 31st 2011 ~ Summary of responses to the consultation on Defra's Contingency Plan for Exotic Notifiable Diseases of Animals held between 18 March and 13 May 2011

The pdf file may be read here. DEFRA says, "Having considered all comments received and amended the plan where appropriate, a revised version of Defra's Contingency Plan for Exotic Notifiable Diseases of Animals was laid before Parliament on 4 July 2011. The plan can be viewed online at: www.defra.gov.uk/animal-diseases/controls/"
The Plan will be reviewed again in 2012.

August 30th 2011 ~ Illegal ivory is still being smuggled out of Africa.

Virginia McKenna OBE, Founder & Trustee Born Free Foundation, recently wrote:
"Elephants are living treasures. Nature's gardeners. Nature's great teachers. Tragically some people don't give a damn. They prefer the dead treasure to the living one. The ivory. We must challenge this so-called 'trade' with all our might and shame on those who would condone it."
Can a petition help? If you think that perhaps it can, please consider signing this petition
"I call on the Parties to CITES, companies, conservationists and people who care about elephants to reject any future proposals for trade in ivory and to support improved protection for elephants"
better still, or in addition make a donation to the Elephant Trust.

August 30th 2011 ~ New research from Pirbright into an effective marker vaccine

See abstract to a new paper by Fowler, Bashiruddin et al at Pirbright "Foot-and-mouth disease marker vaccine: Cattle protection with a partial VP1 G-H loop deleted virus antigen." published in Vaccine. 2011 Aug 18. (Abstract)
It seems (to a layman) that the researchers have demonstrated something important in showing that the "VP1 G - H loop of FMDV" is not after all necessary for protection in cattle.
"We have demonstrated that an FMD virus lacking the VP1 G - H loop can be used as an effective marker vaccine....demonstrate that subclinical infection can be easily and rapidly diagnosed in cattle vaccinated with this negative marker vaccine using our associated diagnostic test."
Any informed comments gratefully received.

August 30th 2011 ~ "There was also union concern over dealing with specific issues raised by having a vaccination rather than a slaughter policy."

This reference to vaccination was the sole mention of the word in the Scotsman's short article entitled, "Scotland 'is ready' if foot-and-mouth disease strikes again" We note the fact that "is ready" is placed between inverted commas. Such an assertion would seem a little incongruous if "specific issues" to do with the question of vaccination have still not been decided. NFU Scotland's Nigel Miller said, after the Moredun conference in March, that Scotland
".. must find a way of avoiding the mass slaughter of animals.. emergency vaccination to live should be accepted as a key part of future strategy."
and he is quoted in the Scotsman's article saying there was "no room for complacency" and that ".. it is in these peace times that we must take stock of the lessons learned from previous epidemics, and prepare for the worst."
It may be remembered that the Scottish FMD Moredun Conference gave us hope that Scotland really was moving towards vaccination-to-live in any future outbreak. The various presentations are worth reading - but as for Scotland feeling itself "ready" for the next outbreak of FMD, one can only hope that such an outbreak is long in the future.

August 29th 2011 ~ "DEFRA should not be both the industry's champion and its regulator."

After seeing video of the cruelty meted out to pigs undergoing slaughter at Elmkirk ( or rather Cheale Meats,) DEFRA showed reluctance to do anything about it - stating that "1200 highly qualified vets and meat inspectors take appropriate enforcement action if workers fail to comply with welfare regulations". The Food Standards Agency said there was "no point investigating " since DEFRA was unable to act on evidence gained without the slaughterhouse's permission (sic).
An announcement made on the Attorney General's website on 12th July says that future decisions about slaughterhouse prosecutions will fall to the Crown Prosecution Service
"...the conduct of such prosecutions will be assigned by the Attorney General, with the agreement of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to the Director of Public Prosecutions under section 3(2)(g) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, and Defra Legal's five prosecution posts will transfer to the CPS..."
The transfer will take place on 1 September 2011. The statement suggests that the "new arrangements provide for strong liaison, partnership and accountability between Defra and the CPS". Comments welcome.

August 24th 2011 ~ On Tuesday August 30th: Protesters dressed as "blood-stained slaughtermen and pigs" to gather in Westminster over DEFRA's inability to prosecute Cheale Meats

The wholly unacceptable practices caught on video by Animal Aid, (below) while upsetting ordinary people in Britain, met with claims from DEFRA that it would be" inappropriate to rely on evidence provided by a third party that it could not obtain under its own statutory powers".
Farmers Weekly reports today that:
"Animal Aid's head of campaigns, said campaigners dressed as blood-stained slaughtermen and pigs would gather outside DEFRA's offices in London on Tuesday (30 August) to demand changes to laws around slaughterhouses."
As Animal Aid asks, if the vets can't or won't act to stop the cruelties and if the slaughterhouse owners look the other way, who is there to stop animals from being abused at the most vulnerable time of their lives?
Animal Aid is doing its best to raise awareness and to urge upon the government the need to improve slaughter practices. Unfortunately, as was pointed out in the Guardian on August 5th:
".. it has to be acknowledged that a system which reduces so many millions of sentient, social and intelligent animals to "units" to be dispatched on an assembly line is likely to have some undesirable consequences- not least, the fact that these animals are sentient, sociable and intelligent is likely to be neglected or ignored. To expect humane practices within a system that is so fundamentally inhumane is perhaps to expect too much..."

August 22nd 2011 ~ "Human numbers are threatening natural systems. We see this everywhere we turn." Prof. Al Bartlett

The catalogue of real challenges we all now face includes credit implosion and the collapse of fiat currency, food security, the end of conventional and affordable energy suppplies, geopolitical instablility, population explosion, ever more ingenious pathogens and the exploitation of resources in a world soon to contain 7 billion human beings - half of whom live in towns.
World Water Week starts today in Stockholm. Speeches can be watched online - but the most chilling speech ever given on resources and population may well be this one in which the elderly Prof Al Bartlett explained gently to young college students why exponential growth in population is deadly. It was a lecture given over ten years ago.

August 21st 2011 ~ "Poor market access, unpredictable weather patterns, and insufficient infrastructure make small-scale agriculture a high-risk livelihood."

An interesting article recently at blogs.worldwatch.org focuses on Africa but increasingly seems to apply anywhere. It is beginning to sink into people's minds that the Western World is about to find credit for growth very difficult to come by, while problems of transportation caused by the inevitable end of cheap energy for fuel and other shortages will add to the coming challenges:
"...Research done by Nourishing the Planet staff has found innovations in sub-Saharan Africa and other locations around the globe that improve market access, enhance farmer-to-farmer communication, and harness simple information technology. These improvements in the food chain provide farmers with fair prices and also help increase food security by distributing food efficiently. Nourishing the Planet recommends three ways that agriculture is helping to address gaps in the current food supply chain.... ."

August 20th 2011 ~ Helen Browning is the new director of the Soil Association. She wants the organic movement to go back to its roots and reach everybody.

Helen Browning OBE, has been an organic farmer for 25 years and has been the chair of the Food Ethics Council. She is energetic in her condemnation of large scale units that are overusing antibiotics and creating MRSA strains. A new programm called "Good Food for All" aims to convince institutions such as schools, hospitals, prisons and businesses that good, local, not intensively produced, fresh food is the best way forward. The Telegraph today:
"We are not about some elitist food market, we are about a set of principles which are one of the key ways to safeguard humanity's time on Earth....You cannot change the food system until people want it to be changed. We need to change behaviour first."
She argues that understanding the natural cycles of the soil and seasons is just as scientific as chemical farming and warns that the English landscape created by family farms "could soon be lost" if we allow US style mega farms to take over the country.

August 17th/18th 2011 ~ A farmer comments on conditions inside the giant intensive pig and dairy farms being proposed.

She runs her own farm in Wales virtually single-handed. It is a glorious place to visit with its emphasis on contented animals, conservation and wildlife. She considers that factory farming is "partly to do with individuals having large amounts of money to invest advantageously in such enterprises and believing they make a return on tax, subsidy and other benefits."
She expresses unequivocal disgust at what life in an intensive farm is really like:
"The absolute stench in the intensive poultry houses and the intensive pig and dairy facilities proposed in itself is cruel. It would be like us spending all our life in a sewage works processing human faeces and urine and never allowed to go outside and breathe fresh air free of the overwhelming stench even once in our whole lives.
There are other reasons too why I think it is cruel to deny the animals all the natural behaviours and experiences that their evolution has fitted them for as though they were not living beings."
She expresses the now widespread worry that small farms will, in the end,
"be only for a niche market, the hobby of the rich, and for environmental reasons. I guess I fall into the latter."
Yes, her farm is a model for the way we should care for the land, its flora and fauna.

August 17th 2011 ~ The unbearable cost of cheap meat - "We are undoing our greatest achievement"

An American study published last week in Environmental Health Perspectives found that going organic and stopping the use of antibiotics resulted in quick and significant reductions in antibiotic resistance.
Earlier this month, shops and consumers across the USA threw away 36 million lbs of ground turkey after more than 100 people became ill from salmonella; at least one person died. In 1945 when Alexander Fleming accepted the Nobel Prize for discovering penecillin, he warned.
"The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops. Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and, by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug, make them resistant,"
In spite of the example of Europe, where antibiotics for livestock growth promotion at least are banned, the US factory farming lobby appears unconcerned about MRSA. Richard Carnevale, vice president for regulatory, scientific and international affairs at the US Animal Health Institute, (which represents pharmaceutical companies) is quoted by the Huffington Post today:
"Antibiotics are used to keep animals as healthy as possible, and healthy animals are at the base of a safe food system. (removing antibiotics would) "increase production costs."
In spite of the deep concern of doctors,"increasing production costs" seems to be thought a far greater evil than the destruction of the best tool in the arsenal against pathogens.

August 17th 2011 ~ Who cares about grossly huge factory farms in Britain?

Planning continues to be sought for mega dairies and pig farms - putting at risk the livelihoods of the small farmers who manage animals on a human scale, already threatened by the over burdening of regulation and the greed for farmland by those aware of the way the wind is blowing. No objections on the question of compromised animal welfare are allowed to oppose plans.
Even after the dreadful episode of H5N1 in 2007, intensive poultry farms continue to exploit millions of unfortunate birds. In spite of a growing unease, most people can suppress their consciences by pointing to cost, it seems, as if they are unaware deep down of the real costs involved in exploitative farming. We are all responsible if we do nothing and still go on buying cheap meat. The Belfast Telegraph once angrily described this: "a symbol of the hypocritical consumerism that professes concern about animal rights even as it demands ever-cheaper food"

August 15th 2011 ~ "...Nigel Miller speaks for the majority when he says that we must find a way of avoiding the mass slaughter of animals.. emergency vaccination to live should be accepted as a key part of future strategy." Professor Crispin and Toby Tennant

Yet, according to the Scottish Farmer on Friday, the Scottish Beef Cattle Association still appears to think vaccination to live - rather than killing - "would pose a greater threat to its members' herds" (sic) in any future FMD outbreak in Scotland. SBCA spokesman, Brian Simpson, makes the very questionable and surely misleading statement: "Vaccination has many drawbacks - not least the period of 14 days needed to identify the strain of foot-and-mouth and get sufficient vaccine manufactured. This early stage of the disease is the most critical period in getting control of any outbreak and we simply cannot rely on waiting for a suitable vaccine as a central part of our strategy."
14 days needed to identify the strain of foot-and-mouth and get sufficient vaccine manufactured? Peter Nettleton told the conference that
• "any new virus can be characterised in hours", and that "Very good vaccines are readily available"
Informed comments would be gratefully received. A letter from Professor Crispin (former President of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons) and Mr Toby Tennant, also published by the Scottish Farmer, applauded the organisers of the Moredun conference in March
"for their courage in addressing the issue of vaccination to live now, rather than when we have the next incursion of FMD."
As we said when the Garland research appeared in July,
"Since so much of the rationale for current EU regulations rests upon the assumption that vaccinated animals and products can spread FMD, and since EU regulations themselves are the very reason why the decision to use emergency vaccination is so hedged about with provisos in the UK Contingency Plan (making wasteful and distressing pre-emptive culling "preferable" to protecting animals), the paper by A.J.M Garland & Kris de Clercq Rev. sci. tech. Off. int. Epiz., 2011, 30 (1), 189-206 - "Cattle, sheep and pigs vaccinated against foot and mouth disease: does trade in these animals and their products present a risk of transmitting the disease?" surely deserves close examination."

August 15th 2011 ~ The attitude of the Scottish Beef Cattle Association mirrors the disastrous attitude taken by South Korea

(See ProMed ) South Korea's eventual decision to vaccinate was taken only after the slaughter of more than 3.39 million animals. South Korean losses were estimated at over 2 trillion won (£1.13 billion pounds) The culling had failed dismally to contain the disease and caused the deepest distress to farmers. (news.xinhuanet.com)
In March, Simon Hall, the Scottish CVO, pointed out that, although owners of vaccinated cattle suffer some short term costs,
• "Trade for producers outside the Vaccinated Zone is not much affected by vaccination - and they will be better off if disease is contained"
Even DEFRA's Alick Simmons' presentation concluded that the Silver Birch exercise had shown that vaccination "reduces expected outbreak cost" and that "the longer export ban is a less important factor since vaccination shortens the outbreak". It would also
• "substantially reduce the expected (average) number of animals culled and the number of farms with culls."
Perhaps the Scottish Beef Cattle Association assumes that, in the successful limited cull they seem to be envisaging, identification of infection and accurate testing of animals could be carried out incredibly fast. And who can guarantee that when budgets are so tight and already existing rapid on-site diagnostic technology is ignored in UK Contingency Plans? As Sam Mansley's "Break Out Session" group emphasised at the time:
" the policy on vaccination... must be agreed between stakeholders and Government in advance of an outbreak using meetings such as today's as a stepping stone."
As they implied, once a culling policy is in full swing, it is tragically late for public outrage to get the policy changed.

August 15th 2011 ~ FMD - Avoiding a two-tier market

The Moredun Breakout Session 3 got to grips with "all the restrictions based around the live animal and the initial controls on the processing of the meat (deboning, maturing, detaining awaiting test results etc)"
".. Due to the concentrated nature of the Scottish processing sector and the high level of independent controls and traceability already in place at abattoirs, it was felt that there was no requirement to differentiate meat (by way of stamps/labels), from vaccinated animals or non-vaccinated animals, subject to the meat having been treated as appropriate for the status of the originating animal(s). This again avoids a two-tier market situation. " Read in full
Links to all the papers from the Moredun "FMD - Vaccine to Live" Conference last March.

August 13th 2011 ~ "weed resistance to Roundup- but the less visible problems below the soil should also be noted and researched"

See Reuters article about the group of scientists who have been turning up potential problems with glyphosate - the major ingredient of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.
".... Outside researchers have also raised concerns over the years that glyphosate use may be linked to cancer, miscarriages and other health problems in people and livestock."
Monsanto continues to maintain that its own research shows glyphosate is safe for humans and the environment. USDA and the US Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing the registration of glyphosate for its safety and effectiveness.

August 13th 2011 ~ Just as humans would be, " pigs are driven insane when intensively confined in extremely crowded, filthy conditions.." Michael Mansfield

One of our heroes, Michael Mansfield QC, has written to Derbyshire County Council to register his objection to the 2,500 sow pig farm planned for Foston. The Farmers Guardian reported on Thursday that he wrote:
"Should the proposed pig prison go ahead, most of the animals will never see sunlight or breathe fresh air until the day they are loaded onto a lorry bound for the abattoir."
He also said that approving the application would have a ‘severely detrimental effect' on the local environment, increasing vehicle traffic, emit ‘foul smells' and create a ‘potential threat' to the water supply.'
Ghandi's view that "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated...the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man" seems as relevant as ever.

August 11th 2011 ~ Live Exports. Thanet Council is unhappy

The BBC reports that Thanet District Council in Kent (the county most involved) is calling for restrictions on the maximum journey time for live animal shipments." A letter sent by the Council to the government asks politicians
"to take a fresh look at what constitutes appropriate treatment".
and it is taking legal advice on whether it can ban the shipments of live animals through Ramsgate that started again in May. Thanet council leader Bob Bayford is quoted:
"The council has made it clear that we do not support the export of live animals abroad and would much prefer that the Port of Ramsgate is not used for this purpose. As well as acting on the motion we agreed at full council, our letter to the government goes one step further. We've also asked Defra [Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] to consider taking a firmer stance on the issue of live animal exports."
Read article The DEFRA spokeman implied that the Department was powerless to do this.

August 10th 2011 ~ UK riots - Having a stake in your community means not wanting to trash it.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Landshare initiative is making a huge difference, it seems. According to the Radio Times, a particular success story is in Leigh in Wigan, where the scheme began.
"According to local police, the communal allotment on Melrose Avenue has had a huge impact on life in the neighbourhood.
"This has been a wonderful project that gives children something positive, healthy and educational to do," said PCSO Wendy Walters. "The allotment has undoubtedly contributed to a staggering 51 per cent reduction in antisocial behaviour on the estate in the last year."
And local residents agree.
"The estate has seen a great improvement in antisocial behaviour since the allotment started," said one. "The site gives children somewhere to go and something to do."
The RT article is quick to say that it would be "simplistic to suggest that allotments are the answer to society's ills" - but growing food as a communal activity must surely be an inspiring investment for the uncertain future. The community allotment on Melrose Avenue, Leigh, was a joint venture between the Leigh Neighbourhood Policing Team and Wigan Council, set up in February 2009 to get young people interested in growing fruit and vegetables. Leigh West councillor Myra Whiteside said at the time:
"It's a fantastic occasion for this small estate. The scheme has been driven by the community and is a great example of partnership ... It has made a real difference to community spirit ...."
Over two years on and it is evidently fulfilling its promise. More on Landshare on this page)

August 9th ~ FDA raid update

Mike Callicrate, cattleman and food activist, says is quoted here,
"The People's agencies (FDA, USDA, etc.) both nationally and locally are doing the work of big agribusiness in eliminating good food alternatives... Perhaps [the Rawesome Raid] will be the spark we need for a real food revolution."
The article looks particularly at Monsanto's role in citing "Food Safety" as a way of controlling what can and cannot be bought as food in America.

August 8/9th ~ Controlling the Food Chain - American style

People in California can financially support small farms and then use the "Rawesome" cooperative to be provided with the fresh, chemical free food they want. Members sign waivers to indicate they understand the "risks of consuming raw food". Rawesome is staffed by volunteers and is non profit making.
Astonishing scenes were captured on video (YouTube) as Los Angeles police, sent by the US Food and Drug Administration, arrived at the private buying club and took away "dangerous" items such as vacuum packed organic meat, fruit and vegetables and poured away gallons of raw milk. Several people were arrested under a "conspiracy to commit a crime" law and spent at least 24 hours in prison.
This isn't the first raid on Rawesome, it seems, as another video shot in 2010 shows, when raw milk was seized. Victoria Bloch was one of the people arrested last week. After the raid in 2010, she said "...there are so many more things that we could use our government agencies to deal with - issues with genuine crimes where people are being actively harmed. But to go after a small farmer, with three kids and a couple of farm hands - to go after that, to shut down her dairy operation when it isn't even a standard commercial dairy operation, where it's completely under the radar in terms of public scrutiny, is outrageous."
After the raid last Wednesday, the presenter of the video spoke of hypocrisy:
"... we have people overseas dying for our supposed freedom when at the same time our government is taking our freedoms away and treating small farmers like criminals...they went in like this was a drug raid."
A young woman who had come to pick up her paid-for groceries remarked,
"...here we have an image of our gvernment dumping gallons and gallons of nourishing food into the trash. I think that's terrorism."
The Food Safety Division of the FDA is run by Monsanto vice president and chief lobbyist, Michael Taylor.

August 8/9th ~ "We don't want animals full of antibiotics" says Rawesome - but the FDA disagrees

The New York Times covered the story on Friday and quoted Lela Buttery, a trustee at Rawesome:
"When members filled out an application, they were saying they wanted natural bacteria in their systems. We don't want labeling. We don't want animals full of antibiotics."
A spokeswoman for the federal Food and Drug Administration was apparently unaware of the irony in her words when she said the administration banned the interstate sale of raw milk products "because they could be dangerous for those with compromised immune systems."
We read at www.sott.net that Government agencies participating in the operation included
" the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; the California Franchise Tax Board; the California Department of Food and Agriculture's Milk and Dairy Food Safety Branch and the department's Division of Measurement Standards; the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office; the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health; the Ventura County Sheriff's Department; the Ventura County Department of Public Health; the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety."
In France, one can buy delicious chilled raw milk from local farms at the supermarket from a vending machine. No warnings given nor waivers demanded. According to the Telegraph on Saturday, Why shouldn't we drink raw milk?, "Dairy UK has demanded that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) ban the sale of unpasteurised milk, citing food safety and the 'safe image of dairy products'..sensibly, the FSA appears to be making no attempt to bend to Dairy UK's demand..." (More)

August 8th 2011 ~ "You've been drugging yourself at dinner every day."

The European Food Safety Agency agrees that antibiotic resistant bacteria can spread through food-producing animals. From www.farming.co.uk (and thanks to Gary for the link)
" ....EFSA's Panel of experts concluded that different bacteria are able to produce these enzymes, most often Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Salmonella. Since 2000, ESBL/AmpC-producing Salmonella and E. coli in animals and foods have been increasingly reported both in Europe and globally.
While resistant bacterial strains have been found in all major food-producing animals, they have been identified most frequently in live chickens and chicken meat, eggs and other poultry products.... The experts therefore strongly recommended to the EFSA that decreasing the overall use of antimicrobials in food-producing animals should be of high priority...."
The full Scientific Opinion on the public health risks of bacterial strains producing extended-spectrum beta-lactamases and/or AmpC beta-lactamases in food and food-producing animals is available from the EFSA here.
As celebrated US farmer, Joel Salatin, says in this Guardian interview:" The more antibiotics are given to the animals we eat, he explains, the less responsive we become to antibiotics when we need them for medical reasons. "You've been drugging yourself at dinner every day."

August 5th 2011 ~ Ragwort.

(revised posting) There is apparent confusion between the "Oxford" ragwort and the "British" plant.
"Oxford Ragwort" we are told, leaves root fragments behind very easily if you try and pull it. This plant has multiple, and more easily broken, stems and more feathery leaves than the "British" ragwort (Senecio jacobaea), which tends to have only one or a few stems, and "pulls out just fine".
The advice quoted yesterday from Information on Ragwort in the UK from a scientific perspective appears to refer only to this Oxford type
"...pulling up ragwort by the roots leaves behind a ring of 4 or 5 broken root fragments, each of which is capable of producing a new rosette in the following year. So, instead of reducing the pest, hand-pulling increases ragwort numbers 4- or 5-fold. Another method beloved of farmers (I suspect because it has such immediate and impressive visual impact) is to mow down the ragwort when it is in flower, in order to prevent it from setting seed. A worthy aim, you might think. But what actually kills ragwort is setting seed, not mowing. ..."
But as the farmer who emailed yesterday points out: "We pull both kinds every year on our 365 acres (taking great care to get the Oxford roots as well as their stems), and it diminishes every year in the areas where it has been allowed to become a bit established. The claim that pulling (actually pulling it, not leaving the root) increases it 4 or 5-fold is complete rubbish! Instead of spreading this new myth, the researchers should be advising all concerned to be sure to pull all the roots, which is often not easy, and sometimes requires deep cutting below ground level." All comments on this topic are welcome. By carrying out an annual survey, the British Horse Society (link) is hoping to gain an insight into trends in ragwort proliferation and to "strengthen the argument to control it". But see also www.ragwortfacts.com which claims there is a lot of misinformation about this plant and "control should be based on a rational scientific approach and aimed where the science says there is an actual threat".

August 4th 2011 ~ RPA's work helps DEFRA "to encourage a thriving farming & food sector and strong rural communities." (it says here)

but for some time now, UK growers have been left wondering whether the RPA is considering stopping their producer organisation (PO) grants for good.
After being fined by the EU for the RPA's incorrect administration of the Producer Organisations aid scheme DEFRA began "re-inspecting" every PO to "check compliance" - or - as one comment in the Farmers Guardian noted grimly, DEFRA seemed to be
"spending its time being a police service investigating producers that misinterpret the rules, rather than assisting them getting support to grow businesses that pay tax to support the UK economy."
The Review is now at an end. We wait to see what this means for the growers.UPDATE 5th August We understand that"...The total number of de-recognised POs is yet to be revealed by the RPA, but the number is much larger than anybody expected, with anecdotal reports suggesting that it's near 50% (including some surprise casualties)." (See RPA page)

August 3rd 2011 ~Rebecca Hoskins' prescient film on farming and how her own farm is facing the coming challenges of financial and energy crises "..if our farm is to survive it will have to change..."

The film is still on YouTube - more urgently important than ever - and includes an interview with Colin Campbell and his warning that in the present decline we are going to see fuel shortages and economic turmoil. These are issues that are simply not being openly discussed but that are of enormous importance for the future of farming.
Interestingly, a description of one of the four farmers shortlisted for the RSPB/Telegraph this year Nature Farmer of the Year,is that he is "Keen to minimise resource usage, he has installed a reedbed to clean water, and decreased fertiliser use by 80%" (Here are the eight regional winners this year.)

August 1st 2011 ~ Ex RPA chief, Tony Cooper, got a £326,000 golden handshake

The Farmers Weekly reports: " The payments were revealed in the agency's annual accounts for 2011..."
Last July, warmwell reported: According to the Farmers Guardian he has announced he is to take early retirement "for personal reasons".
Figures released following a Freedom of Information request revealed that Mr Cooper's expenses claims for 2008-09 included £3,138 for business-class flights abroad and £9,361 for 1st or Business Class tickets on UK trains . He also claimed £3,306 for private mileage and £13,320 for hotel accommodation in the UK. Jim Paice commented at the time that he didn't see why Mr Cooper should have travelled outside Europe - except
"possibly to see how other countries are doing the job better."
(See RPA page)

August 1st 2011 ~ "This approach could allow us to make safer and more effective vaccines against a range of viral diseases."

At present, Bluetongue vaccines are attenuated and killed virus vaccines. Professor Polly Roy's team at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has now developed a promising alternative "also compliant as DIVA (differentiating infected from vaccinated animals) vaccines". The team has succeeded in assembling the virus in a test tube. "No one had been able to get such a complicated virus to assemble outside a cell before."
Professor Douglas Kell, BBSRC Chief Executive, is also quoted by www.farminguk.com
"This is an exciting development and offers great potential for future vaccine development. Using the tools of synthetic biology, we are now able to assemble viruses piece by piece in a way that gives us far greater understanding of how they work. This approach could allow us to make safer and more effective vaccines against a range of viral diseases."
More on warmwell's Bluetongue pages.

August 1st 2011 ~ Joel Salatin demonstrating the antidote to the grisly US cattle feed lot. Some happy cows here!

This video (YouTube) of the US farmer being interviewed is quite long - but here is a farmer whose long experience of using natural, humane methods to raise his cows, rabbits, pigs and poultry means he can run a highly profitable farm, speak with spirited warmth and assurance - and show a very healthy scepticism about bureaucrats and "science-based" legislation. His farm uses minimal fuel, no artificial fertilisers or pharmaceuticals and his outfit is the epitome of localisation. No one could doubt the health of his animals.
"Our culture attacks symptoms instead of real causes. People give more awards for a pharmaceutical that will keep a Tyson chicken-bird healthy than they give awards for people who have figured out a way where you don't have to use a pharmaceutical to begin with."
Very well worth watching. (Do read Joel Salatin's "Everything I want to do is illegal" - it may well make readers both angry and inspired. http//www.acresusa.com/toolbox/reprints/Salatin_Sept03.pdf )

July 31st 2011 ~ "I've decided that to be an alternative farmer or an ecological farmer or whatever buzz word you want to put on it, you have to be a sissy...." Joel Salatin

"...Because it's just not masculine to come in and tell the wife who gives her big hunk a kiss and says
'Oh Harry, what have you done all day, my big hero?''
If he says,
'Oh Matilda, I made the cows happy.'
It's more masculine to come in and say: 'Smell the diesel, rub the grease, I killed a million earthworms, I ploughed up forty acres and I burned up all this petroleum" You know, the pig iron under the thighs, you know, that's masculine and I've decided that this 'being in tune with it' the reason why we don't do it much as farmers is that men were not hard-wired to care that much or to see, to be that observant in Nature ...." More

July 31st 2011 ~ "the fact is, we aren't machines.."

Joel Salatin, one of the world's most renowned sustainable farmers, (he calls for "aesthetically and aromatically pleasing farms", insists that "policy follows people, people don't follow policy") understands why the sort of casual cruelty captured on film by Animal Aid (below) is able to come about.
" What happens when you don't ask: how do we make pigs happy? Well, you view the pig as just a pile of protoplasmic structure to be manipulated however cleverly human hubris can imagine to manipulate it. And when you view life from that kind of mechanistic, arrogant, disrespectful standpoint, you very soon begin to view all of life from a very disrespectful, arrogant, manipulative standpoint. And the fact is, we aren't machines."
His optimism is infectious and persuasive. Progress towards good food on humane farms happens, he says, "one person at a time. It's a true grass roots movement":
"We don't need a law against McDonald's or a law against slaughterhouse abuse--we ask for too much salvation by legislation. All we need to do is empower individuals with the right philosophy and the right information to opt out en masse."
Joel Salatin argues that the industrial paradigm in agriculture has come to the end of its workability.
" What happens is all these things we're seeing - campylobacter, E coli, mad cow, listeria, salmonella, that weren't even in the lexicon 30 years ago - that is the industrial paradigm exceeding its efficiency. So these Latin squiggly words that we're learning to say - bovine spongiform encephalopathy - are nature's language screaming to us: ENOUGH!"
(see Youtube interview "...It fully honours and respects the pigness of the pig.")

July 31st 2011 ~ Salatin offers five reasons why small, local, chemical-free farming is best.

"Can I feed the world? That's a wonderful question, one of my favourites. Not only can we feed the world, this is the only system that really can feed the world.... Why don't people like the truth? It's a big question. One answer is: it hasn't been done before. It's just not what Grandpa did.... if everybody started doing the kind of farming we do, it would completely invert and realign all of the food-system power economic structure in the world. We're looking at cultural revolution - that's what this is."
• safer from a bio-security standpoint.... the less chance there is of anything from bio-terrorism to pathogenicity to spoilage. You wanna get diarrhoea? Eat industrial food.
• your own personal immune system." The more antibiotics are given to the animals we eat, he explains, the less responsive we become to antibiotics when we need them
• nutritional density and power "Omega 3, omega 6 ratios, riboflavin, polyunsaturated fats, vitamin A…"
• it tastes better.
• better for the environment. It's a very landscape-therapeutic production model.
Salatin currently feeds between 7,000 and 9,000 locals. (Guardian 31/1/2010)

July 29th 2011 ~ US: "To encourage small, diversified farms is not to make a nostalgic bid to revert to the agrarian ways of our ancestors.."

"... It is to look toward the future, leapfrogging past the age of heavy machinery and pollution." An article in the New York Times back in 2008 was prescient about the need for agriculture that is no longer reliant on oil. Small farms use fewer large machines and less pesticide and fertilizer.
"...Increasingly we can see the wisdom of diversified farming operations, where there are built-in relationships among plants and animals. ...When crops and livestock are judiciously mixed, agriculture wisely mimics nature.
...Farmers organized into marketing networks that can promote their common brands (like the Organic Valley Family of Farms in the Midwest) can ease the economic and ecological burden of food production and transportation. They can also distribute their products to new markets, including poor communities that have relied mainly on food from convenience stores. ..."
Read in full

July 28th 2011 ~ Grocery Ombudsman- "strong arguments that indirect suppliers such as farmers should be given a voice."

A report published today from the Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, Report: Time to Bring on the Referee? The Government's Proposed Adjudicator for the Groceries Code, calls for powers to impose fines, and also wants changes to allow indirect suppliers such as farmers and trade associations - and whistleblowers - to be able to provide the evidence that would spark an investigation by the adjudicator.
The Chair of the Select Committee, Adrian Bailey MP, is quoted on the www.parliament.uk/site:
"... The Adjudicator will provide protection for suppliers in the form of a cloak of anonymity and will have its own powers to investigate allegations....." Read in full
Mr Bailey says the costs of operating the new body will not be great compared with the size of the groceries market but that the report makes suggestions on how the issue of costs should be addressed.
" It is now already three years since the Competition Commission's recommendation for an Adjudicator. The Government should move ahead with legislation as soon as possible."
(Our first entry on the Grocery Ombudsman page was February 20 2009.)

July 28th 2011 ~ Cheale Meats denies that video footage of extreme cruelty to pigs proves it was filmed at "Elmkirk"

It leapt into the news in February 2001 as the first place foot and mouth disease was officially noticed. Cheale Meats, now known as Elmkirk, claims to uphold high standards of animal welfare.
Footage given to Sky News two days ago shows staff at "a UK abattoir" punching pigs and burning them with cigarettes. Animal Aid claims that the abattoir was Cheale Meats.
Once again, DEFRA's reason for not bringing a prosection is that "campaigners trespassed to obtain the footage".
According to RSPCA prosecutor, Sally Case, quoted by Sky News, only officially installed CCTV can provide "proper, admissible evidence of any offending." Sky News points out that this is not always true and gives two examples.
As one reader - a vet - suggests,"It would be interesting to have a QC's opinion as to whether such evidence is really unlikely to be allowed."
The article adds that Cheale Meats claims that it has had independently monitored CCTV for ten years. If both parties are telling the truth, the Elmkirk CCTV is failing to record that ignorant cruelty takes place.
Alan Bennett, writing about the 2001 foot and mouth slaughter in Untold Stories (p293) wrote:
"In fifty years' time I am sure that we will not handle animals the way we do now - and to succeeding generations our behaviour will seem as barbarous as bear baiting...."
It is depressing to know that slaughtermen can be so badly trained and supervised that the sort of casual brutality seen on the videos is still taking place in English abattoirs, wherever it was filmed.

July 28th 2011 ~ Even Shell now says the "age of low cost oil and gas is over"

(See Financial Times) The ramifications of the end of cheap energy are many, and considerably more serious than one is likely to read in the mainstream press. Add the credit crunch to the end of cheap energy and the policy of outsourcing production of so many things to other countries makes the UK more and more vulnerable. The modern agribusiness model depends on cheap oil, cheap water, cheap fertilisers and parts manufactured abroad - but with financial meltdown and increasingly expensive energy, modern agribusiness looks precarious. The peak oil situation means turning fossil fuels into energy is becoming more and more expensive - and more harmful to soil, water, atmosphere and oceans.
The UK Industry Task Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security, led by Dr Jeremy Leggett, has been warning since 2008 that the effects of the oil crunch must be seriously prepared for.
Once again, we recommend a visit to the Automatic Earth website whose authors are not afraid to look the coming challenges full in the face.

July 27th 2011 ~ "emissions from livestock estimated to be responsible for only around 9.1 per cent of all emissions in the European Union"

It is interesting to see an EBLEX blog post today entitled, "Putting the record straight on climate change." Warmwell has reported several times before about the positive effects of livestock grazing. Our own many postings in passionate defence of livestock grazing ( from 2009 - 2011 here) make the case that livestock and land are linked. Grazing animals play a crucial role in maintaining Britain's pastoral landscape. Although methane output of cattle may have been leapt upon by the environmentalists as harmful, grazing on grass actuallyl soaks up carbon. (See also the NBA's In defence of Cattle) As Alan Titchmarsh in the BBC series "The Nature of Britain", said,
"Even if it were possible to plough our grasslands and moorlands and grow vegan food, the carbon release would be far greater than centuries of the exhalations of cattle and sheep."
And vegan food - lentils, pulses and cereals - while excellent in their way, require ten units of fossil fuel energy to produce one unit - while we still have access to cheap fuel. Grass-fed livestock reduce the use of fertiliser used in farming because of the dung cows leave behind, and create huge environmental gains by encouraging earthworms for the birds and animals which follow where cattle graze." (More)

July 26th 2011 ~ "No evidence for spread of foot and mouth disease by vaccinated animals or their products"

A new paper by A.J.M Garland & Kris de Clercq Rev. sci. tech. Off. int. Epiz., 2011, 30 (1), 189-206 - "Cattle, sheep and pigs vaccinated against foot and mouth disease: does trade in these animals and their products present a risk of transmitting the disease?"- examines the rationale behind OIE restrictions applied to trade in both vaccinated and unvaccinated animals and their products. Summary in full:
The foot and mouth disease (FMD) status of a country or region has a profound bearing on access to export markets for live animals and animal products. In countries without FMD-free status, and in accordance with the international standards of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), restrictions may be applied to trade in both vaccinated and unvaccinated animals and their products. Available information suggests that, provided there is compliance with essential criteria concerning vaccines, vaccination and other zoosanitary measures (especially quarantine and ante- and post-mortem inspection), the risk of spreading FMD through the importation of vaccinated cattle, sheep and pigs is extremely small. The risk from products derived from vaccinated animals is even smaller, provided that appropriate risk mitigation measures are applied. Knowledge of the zoosanitary status of the exporting country is critical for risk assessment, but can be difficult to verify. Although empirical evidence and practical experience strongly indicate low risk, it is not possible to assert that the risk is zero for vaccinated animals or their products. In the absence of key factual data, risk analysis is only practicable on a qualitative or semi-quantitative basis. However, a very low level of risk is both unavoidable and acceptable if such trade is to be conducted.
The conclusion:
"... with the provisos discussed, empirical evidence over many years strongly indicates the absence of FMD risk from vaccinated animals or products derived from them..." (See full discussion)
is surely interesting and important. Since so much of the rationale for current EU regulations rests upon the assumption that vaccinated animals and products can spread FMD, and since EU regulations themselves are the very reason why the decision to use emergency vaccination is so hedged about with provisos in the UK Contingency Plan (making wasteful and distressing pre-emptive culling "preferable" to protecting animals), the paper surely deserves close examination.

July 25th 2011 ~ Tim Farron says the RPA is letting farmers down

He is frustrated that the latest NAO report says : "Total disallowance penalties paid and payable by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are now in excess of £0.5 billion." Mr Farron, elected President of the Liberal Democrats last September, is quoted here. He said:
"Reading the report by the National Audit Office it was as close as government administrators come to saying that a department is a disaster. The bottom line is that the Rural Payments Agency is letting farmers down. It is their job to ensure that farmers receive payments for providing essential environmental work - for most farmers in Cumbria, these payments are the difference between them scratching a living and going bankrupt."
More on RPA page

July 25th 2011 ~ Botswana Vaccine Institute has announced a new purified FMD vaccine

Botswana's FMD (serotype: SAT 2) crisis has meant that close to 5000 cattle have been slaughtered in the recent past. Now what is described as a new purified vaccine, recently produced by the Botswana Vaccine Institute, is to be used and vaccination started on 13 July 2011 in the whole of zone 7. As the latest OIE report for Botswana states:
"To date 42,000 cattle out of the expected 150,000 cattle have been vaccinated with a purified FMD trivalent (SAT 1, SAT 2, SAT 3) vaccine. Vaccination continues and a booster vaccination will be done after completion of this round. Movement of cloven-hoofed animals and their derived fresh products is not allowed into and within zone 7 except for fresh products which are traceable. Biosecurity measures are still in place."
ASNS news reports: "... the new vaccine is hoped to replace the Inactivated Trivalent Foot and Mouth Disease vaccine that has been in use in the past which has proved ineffective."

July 22nd 2011 ~ The Forestry Panel newsletter - and reminder that there is only just over a week to respond to the important questions on why England needs to keep woodland in public ownership.

In March (below) a posting about the Independent Panel suggested that its composition might perhaps leave a lot to be desired - however, the panel has indeed made contact with some grassroots campaigners and the first Forestry Panel newsletter (pdf) is here, thanks to the energy of the "Save Our Woods" website. The newsletter is very readable and, following a vist there, has particular reference for our readers in the Forest of Dean. Extract:
"... the Panel wants to understand the widest range of views, interests and expertise....... During the course of the visit the Panel also heard about the privilege of grazing and also visited a free mine to hear about this long standing and unique practice.
.... whatever your connection; whether you are a dog walker, environmentalist, forestry worker, wood processor, commercial forest owner, cyclist or family who love weekends at the forest - ...share your views and make your voice heard to the panel."
If you have not yet added your voice in support of keeping as much of England's woodlands as possible in public ownership, see the useful page here, again on the "Save Our Woods" website - a labour of love in the very best sense, showing "public passion to protect our woods & forests, firmly rooted in fact"

July 21st 2011 ~ RPA woes...and on it goes...

The National Audit Office (NAO) has refused to sign off Whitehall accounts for a third year , and we learn that the European fines incurred by inefficiencies at the RPA have cost DEFRA - i.e. taxpayers - more than £500 million so far, money that could have been spent by DEFRA on things that have now been axed. This website first became aware of the extraordinary inefficiency of the RPA at the beginning of 2006. 5 years does seem a long time for the issue to drag on and on - especially when it is cash strapped farmers and taxpayers in general who have to pay for the failings of the RPA. More.

July 20th 2011 ~"you start to appreciate just how practical, ethical and simply beautiful sustainable farming can be...."

The New York Times today looks at two Iowa farmers who know all too well why industrially produced meat is only slightly more expensive than garbage. But ethical doesn't have to mean small farms struggling to survive.
"...Becker's pork is among the best I've ever had. But when you see his operation, which is far from small - he's raising 400 pigs at a time, along with rotating crops throughout pie-shaped sectors of his acreage, in a scheme that seems logical and orderly - you start to appreciate just how practical, ethical and simply beautiful sustainable farming can be..."
The article discusses the "less is more" argument
".. fewer drugs, better-treated animals and so on. That treatment costs money, but as Becker says,"Food isn't just a pile of stuff to be measured by weight and volume, and there's a reason industrially produced meat is just a little more expensive than garbage."
The label "organic" is less important than care and humanity. As the writer says, "That the quality is appreciated is evident from the fact that neither operation can keep up with demand."

July 17th 2011 ~ Wild animal reintroduction projects - "potential man-made threats to biodiversity"

The Sunday Telegraph points out that while reintroducing animals and birds that died out may seem like a worthy idea, the vets who are wildlife specialists have warned that they can have a devastating effect on the ecology of Britain. The red kte, for example, is threatening some songbird species. It is wildly optimistic to think that there can be a "controlled" reintroduction of species such as beavers and wolves. Read in full

July 15th 2011 ~ Pet Passport: Worried about tapeworms, UK vets lobby that dogs will still have to visit vet 24-120 hours before travelling back.

Although many of the Pet Passport rules for the UK are being relaxed, the veterinary profession is concerned that a country like ours, free from endemic Echinococcus multilocularis, should not make its entry easy as it can be a killer in humans. BVA president Harvey Locke is quoted today at vetsonline:
"This has been a long process but the BVA and BSAVA put forward the strong scientific case for the UK to maintain tapeworm controls and we are delighted that the European Commission has adopted this resolution. In our role as guardians of public health, vets were deeply concerned that the removal of tapeworm controls would see the introduction of EM to the UK and Ireland. Although relatively benign in dogs, the resulting disease in humans - alveolar echinococcosis - is an invasive, cancer-like cystic stage of the parasite, and is invariably fatal if not treated. The next stage of our lobbying will be to ensure that Member States and MEPs from across Europe support the UK's case for the additional controls."
So, although a visit to the vet before returning to the UK can be expensive or sometimes difficult to arrange before travelling home, the vets are surely right to take this action.

July 8th 2011 ~ "Unless vets and doctors recognise the importance of working together, we could be faced with a world unable to control infectious diseases."

A worldwide campaign with the tagline "no action today, no cure tomorrow" has been launched by the World Health Organisation to safeguard antimicrobials for future generations. The WHO speaks of the ‘relentless rise' in the number and types of resistant micro-organisms. The British Medical Association and the British Veterinary Association join forces to express their concern in a letter to the Veterinary Record .The letter (July 2nd) is now available on the internet. Extract:
"....The BVA and BMA have repeatedly highlighted how poor prescribing practice and the misuse of antimicrobials can lead to the emergence of drug-resistant infections. ... Unless vets and doctors recognise the importance of working together, we could all be faced with a world in which we are unable to control infectious diseases. Antimicrobial resistance does not respect the boundaries between animal and human medicine and a holistic approach is the only way that we can tackle this challenge."
Read in full (short pdf) at http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com

July 8th 2011 ~ 48 awards from Compassion in World Farming celebrated companies' commitment to improving animal welfare, ethical farming and developing sustainable supply chains.

Once again, Waitrose has been named the most compassionate supermarket at the Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards, organised by the excellent Compassion in World Farming (CIWF). Sainsbury's took the title for best volume supermarket, the Co-operative was recognised as the most improved supermarket. For a report on the awards, see www.meatinfo.co.uk It was cheering to read about the new category, part of the dairy award, the "Good Calf Commendation"
"..which recognises the work being done to develop a sustainable, high-welfare veal industry and its role in solving the problem of under-utilisation of unwanted dairy calves. The winners were Brookfield Farm, Dovecote Park Ltd and Sainsbury's."
Also noted with optimism is the fact that CIWF will include the "Good Pig Award" next year.

July 6th 2011 ~ EU Parliament extends mandatory country of origin labelling to fresh meat from pigs, sheep, goats and poultry - but no compulsory labelling of products from animals slaughtered without stunning

See www.europarl.europa.eu/en/headlines "....Under existing EU rules, the origin of certain foods - such as beef, honey, olive oil and fresh fruit and vegetables - already has to be shown on the label. This also applies where the failure to do so would mislead the consumer. This rule will now be extended to fresh meat from pigs, sheep, goat and poultry, at Parliament's request. The Commission will have to introduce implementing rules for this purpose within two years of the regulation's entry into force."
The British Veterinary Association says today they welcome the decision on country of origin labelling - but will not be detracted from continuing to "lobby strongly for the issue of animals slaughtered without stunning to be included in future European animal welfare proposals from the Commission" See BVA Press Release.

July 6th 2011 ~ CIWF's Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards will be awarded this evening

See www.smallholder.co.uk "The Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards is a unique industry event, which includes accolades such as The Good Egg, The Good Chicken, The Supermarket Awards, and new this year, The Good Dairy Award.
Winners in 2010 included: Waitrose, Coca-Cola, Virgin Trains, Pret a Manger and numerous local councils and universities."

July 5th 2011~ James Paice on country of origin labelling, local slaughter, new slaughter welfare regulations, progress on encouraging the consumption of rose veal - but live exports from Ramsgate resume

From Hansard June 30th:
James Paice : "......at the moment the Union Jack could appear on a product from a pig that was not reared in Britain, and that needs to be stopped. I can tell him that the whole meat industry has agreed a voluntary code on country of origin labelling..
...We want to encourage the slaughtering of animals locally wherever possible. Not only is it good for welfare reasons, it is good for local employment and fits in with local food, which we all want to encourage....
...we will shortly consult on the introduction of the new welfare at slaughter regulations and we will be raise this whole matter (of pre-slaughter stunning) then...
....although the number of bull calves being slaughtered at birth is now much lower than it was, because there has been a welcome increase in the consumption of veal. We need to make sure that this is UK veal and is what we call "rose veal", whereby calves are reared in humane circumstances and not in some of the arrangements we see abroad...." More
British calves and sheep are now being exported through the port of Ramsgate in Kent and long journeys in high summer can be appalling. Compassion in World Farming and local campaigners are determined to end this trade and could do with support. Interesting that studies such as these show more and more that sentient animals are capable of far more emotional activity than was originally thought.

July 5th 2011~ FMD in Israel: " the efficacy of the vaccine has been demonstrated by the fact that not a single dairy animal has been (clinically) affected in Israel since the start, in March 2011, of the epizootic

... and in spite the fact that in several cases such animals were held close to affected young stock."
See ProMed for today's posting about the new outbreak of foot and mouth in Kibbutz Shamir, close to the Lebanese border. "...There is a dense wild boar population in the vicinity of Shamir. Results of tested samples, in case performed, would be of interest."
The department of virology at the Kimron Veterinary Institute isolated the FMD virus on Saturday but serotyping has not yet been accomplished. More detail on the FMD page

July 3rd 2011 ~ " I welcome any progress that can be made to ensure we never have to go through a mass cull again."

As we mention below (June 23rd) Sir Alan Beith, MP for Berwick, last week challenged the Government on new proposals to deal with foot and mouth disease following the publication of Defra research.
Today, the exchange is published in the Northumberland Gazette. Sir Alan is quoted:
"People in rural Northumberland will remember the terrible effect the mass culls had on our farmers and I welcome any progress that can be made to ensure we never have to go through a mass cull again."
Unfortunately however, the Northumberland Gazette has folllowed the usual unquestioning practice of journalists in saying that "six million" animals were killed in the FMD crisis of 2001.
It is time that the true figure of the carnage was used when journalists and politicians remember the stark reality of a policy that has still not substantially changed.

July 3rd 2011 ~ "10 million animals were slaughtered in foot and mouth cull"

Robert Uhlig, Farming Correspondent of the Telegraph, reported on January 23 2002 that the official culling figure of "six million" was wildly wrong. Jane Connor, economic forecaster at the Meat and Livestock Commission said that many more animals were overlooked in the official slaughter figure for FMD 2001. According to her calculations:
• at least 1.2 lambs "at foot" were killed with each breeding sheep - amounting to four million lambs slaughtered but not counted.
• the official toll of 595,000 cattle did not include 100,000 calves and 50,000 unborn calves close to birth that were killed with their mothers.
• In addition, about 500,000 lambs were killed in the so-called "light lamb disposal plan" because they were considered unsellable.
(More)
In the light of the flawed thinking behind the policy, even those unmoved by the reality that these quiet statistics represent could hardly deny that this was a massacre of the innocents.
Sir Alan speaks for many more than his own constituents in saying we must ensure we never have to go through a mass cull again.
However, as will be remembered, all James Paice could say to Sir Alan, apart from repeating the mantra about farmer vigilance, was that the new DEFRA part-funded study ( "Relationship Between Clinical Signs and Transmission of an Infectious Disease and the Implications for Control") was "an important piece of research", and that DEFRA was "collaborating with the researchers" to assess its value "in managing disease outbreaks"

July 1st 2011 ~ "the Welsh Government took a bold step forward and then two steps back. In March the then-Minister announced that new regulations to tackle puppy farming would not be introduced."

There has been an extraordinary and inexplicable delay in the banning of puppy breeding "farms" in Wales. The British Veterinary Association has expressed its strong feelings:
"Minister, I implore you to put this issue back at the top of the Government's agenda. Too often veterinary surgeons see the devastating consequences of poor breeding practices. A huge amount of work has already been completed by experts in the field and bold policies proposed. I can assure you that you will have the full support of the veterinary profession."
BVA press release.

30th June 2011 ~ FMD. Some countries do indeed learn fast - 18 months on from "FMD free without vaccination", South Korea now demands FMD vaccination certificates from all livestock farmers.

The FMD catastrophe suffered by South Korea this year, details of which are chronicled on the FMD page, may well be its last - but involved the country in a huge outlay of money and grief. A decision has now been made (on June 24) to demand proof of FMD vaccination of all cattle, pigs and goats - and without such certificates, farmers will not be allowed to trade at livestock markets nor take livestock to slaughterhouses.
When the first FMD cases were discovered in January 2010 ProMed explained that
"S.Korea still refrains from vaccinating in order to regain at the earliest date its FMD-free status, officially recognised by the OIE, and consequently be able to renew exports as soon as the outbreak is eradicated and the country declared free of FMD."
But the stringent measures and relentless killing that caused such distress could not defeat the virus - hence the belated change of tack last January. There are so many lessons here for the UK - but DEFRA is not noted for learning the lessons of experience.
The vaccination section of the OIE question and answer pdf file may strike readers as questionable since many "questions" are not in fact given adequate answers. While acknowledging that vaccines are used routinely in many countries, the OIE's rationale for the non-use of vaccines at no point mentions the fact that banning vaccination allows a form of protectionism, nor does it dare to suggest that vaccines don't work. It merely emphasies the cost of vaccination - and this without any mention of the potential financial and social costs of not vaccinating. (See also Korean article http://www.jejuweekly.com link mended.

29th June 2011 ~ Prof Peter C. Doherty, Nobel Laureate 1996, Melbourne

Professor Doherty's speech about the eradication of rinderpest, given at a special session of FAO's Annual Conference:
"Given the resources and the political will, it is clearly feasible to think in terms of controlling some other major infections of domestic animals in this way. Obvious candidates are the rinderpest-like PPR and, perhaps, Newcastle disease and foot and mouth disease. ..."
Measles is still with us and the reason, suggests Prof Doherty, is "the anti-vaccination movements in the advanced countries.... Nowhere is the 'one world' concept of veterinary and human medicine more relevant than in the area of microbial disease...."

29th June 2011 ~ "removing mutant virus incubators that large chicken houses represent... also serve to minimize the emergence of novel pandemic viruses that infect humans and/or other domestic animal species"

Can GM be part of the solution in combating those viruses that are widespread and maintained by nature itself? Prof Doherty's speech also mentions how for some viruses, such as the high pathogenic poultry diseases, vaccination has not been able to address the problem because Nature itself maintains the viruses "by a diversity of wild water fowl".
He pleads for the use of contemporary molecular science to establish genetically-modified birds that resist infection with all influenza A viruses.
"Apart from the benefits to producers and consumers, removing mutant virus incubators that large chicken houses represent... also serve to minimize the emergence of novel pandemic viruses that infect humans and/or other domestic animal species."
He says that Science continues to offer extraordinary possibilities for the control of animal disease and early experiments in the development of birds that can withstand avian infuenza viruses look encouraging, but he is under no illusions about the difficulties involved in making GM birds acceptable for human consumption.
As we have often said, we have no wish to throw the entire GM baby out with the bath water. The question of genetic modification is surely one that needs an intelligent and transparent examination. There will continue to be confusion until we can achieve open minded consideration of all the issues involved but for many on both sides it evokes an angry or contemptuous knee-jerk response. The greed of giant corporations such as Monsanto who use GM to make huge profits and take away the rights of growers to save their own seed is quite different from the already accepted use of biotechnology in human and veterinary medicine. Read the speech in full at ProMed

June 28th 2011 ~ Foston mega pig farm plans "delayed"

"proposals for a 25,000 pig farm in Foston, Derbyshire are not going to be heard by planners until the autumn. The delay comes after a public meeting against the development held by the Soil Association and Pig Business last week.
This means there's still time to send your objections in if you haven't already done so. You can find out how to do this here."

June 27th 2011 ~ "The Soil Association's 'Not in My Banger' campaign is not about promoting organic, it's about pigs being allowed to go outdoors and not being mutilated."

We read at www.fwi.co.uk today that the application by Midland Pig Producers for the 2,500-sow pig farm in Foston in Lincolnshire is unlikely to be heard by county planners until the autumn The Soil Association's Peter Melchett has told campaigners and local residents that giving the Foston site the go-ahead paved the way for a "new direction in British farming which is just wrong". Farmers Weekly quotes him:
"This is not about organic or non-organic. And it's not about finding ways to reduce imports, because this kind of farm won't help that. What will give British pig producers a future is giving people really strong reasons to buy British. That doesn't mean just saying there is high animal welfare, it needs to be more to get consumer loyalty.... While Foston says they won't dock tails or clip teeth, our view is that pigs should spend at least part of their life outdoors.
The Soil Association's 'Not in My Banger' campaign is not about promoting organic, it's about pigs being allowed to go outdoors and not being mutilated." (Read article)
Lord Melchett feels that all of farming's future is being decided on what people will buy. The Soil Association and WSPA's campaigns, Not in my Cuppa and Not in My Banger, do seem to be making an impact of consumers' awareness of the provenance of their food.

June 27th 2011 ~ "Farmageddon" - a film about the Unseen War on American Family Farms

The film has its World Premiere today. It questions why more and more small, family farms, that were providing safe, healthy foods to their communities, are being forced out of business. From the website:
"....policymakers and regulators implement and enforce solutions that target and often drive out of business small farms that have proven themselves more than capable of producing safe, healthy food, but buckle under the crushing weight of government regulations and excessive enforcement actions.
Farmageddon highlights the urgency of food freedom, encouraging farmers and consumers alike to take action to preserve individuals' rights to access food of their choice and farmers' rights to produce these foods safely and free from unreasona-bly burdensome regulations. The film serves to put policymakers and regulators on notice that there is a growing movement of people aware that their freedom to choose the foods they want is in danger, a movement that is taking action with its dollars and its voting power to protect and preserve the dwindling number of family farms that are struggling to survive..."
Read in full The importance of this issue can hardly be over emphasised - and is, of course, as important for the UK and Europe as it is for America.

June 27th 2011 ~ Too many free range eggs?

The NFU's chief poultry adviser, Kelly Watson, spoke on Farming Today about the way the UK has invested £400 million in preparing for the end of battery cages - but that money is being lost because, she says, there are "too many" free range eggs
"the market is out of kilter at the moment and we also have a big problem with the cost of feed, so these two factors combined have put pressure on the industry...the UK laying flock has reduced but we're still two or three million hens too many..."
As Farming Today suggested, what is needed is for "non free range producers to go out of business". The sooner the better.

June 23rd 2011 ~ Sir Alan Beith asks the Secretary of State if she will review her policy of the pre-emptive culling of cattle during foot and mouth disease outbreaks in the light of recent research on the issue.

Hansard Mr Paice's disappointing but entirely predictable example of the political non answer:
"I read with interest the research to which the right hon. Member refers. This is an important piece of research on foot and mouth disease in young cattle. DEFRA is collaborating with the researchers at the Institute for Animal Health to assess the value of these findings in managing disease outbreaks. Quick reporting of suspect cases of the disease by farmers and veterinarians and selective culling of animals, coupled with vaccination where that can make an effective contribution to control, remain the best way of stopping this disease."
Remove the meaningless flannel and what is left is that there will be no review of policy. Essentially, it remains what it was in 2001 except that there would be no excessive "compensation"- i.e. slaughter, slaughter, slaughter - and this in spite of excellent modern vaccines and available point of need diagnosis that can predict the presence of virus before clinical signs appear.

June 21st 2011 ~ "after everyone else has grabbed their share, there's little left for our farmers"

So read the words of a banner showing an empty glass of milk with many straws sticking out of it. The banner is being carried by dairy farmers outside Parliament today before their meeting with MPs about the EU dairy package. The NFU's Briefing Note to MPs is here.
"...we believe that government involvement is needed to ensure fair dealings between dairy farmers and milk buyers.
The NFU would like the government to raise the benchmark for all by setting out certain contractual practices and create fairer and balanced contractual terms prior to the removal of milk quotas.."
Read in full (pdf)

June 20th 2011 ~ MRSA was first identified in milk from a British herd on 24 September 2009.

James Paice's answer (Hansard) to a question on Friday about Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA). He was asked when the DEFRA Minister was
"first informed of the discovery by researchers from the university of Cambridge of a new strain of MRSA in milk from a British herd; and what steps she plans to take to address the issue."
Mr Paice's answer was that Caroline Spelman was "notified of the impending publication of the university of Cambridge's paper on this novel MRSA strain" on 1 June 2011. It included reference to the DEFRA Antimicrobial Resistance Coordination (DARC) group.
" A sub-group specifically on MRSA will also continue to monitor all new developments relating to all types of MRSA and will advise on potential policy options accordingly. Further research projects will be commissioned on antimicrobial resistance. Their scope will continue to be prioritised."
Ever since the discovery of penicillin, antibiotics have been successful in controlling bacteria - but are useless against the new breeds of superbugs. One wonders if Mr Paice's answer satisfied the questionner, Dr Julian Huppert, who is one of the few genuine scientists in Parliament. He is on long-term leave from his research post (University Research Councils UK Academic Fellow in Computational Biology and a Fellow of Clare College) since he is Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge. Does his question about the alarming resistance to antibiotics in livestock need a rather more urgent and proactive response from DEFRA than the vague "further research projects will be commissioned"? Many think so, and worry that we are sleepwalking into a disastrous situation when many of the drugs we depend on will no longer be effective because of their routine overuse on factory farms.

June 20th 2011 ~" the emergence of new virus infections..may spread from animals to cause disease in humans"

Prof John Fazakerley, a leading researcher in virology, is the new Director of the Institute of Animal Health. Prof Fazakerley, formerly at the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, recognises that animal and veterinary health are closely connected:
"In the foreseeable future, climate and environmental change, human population growth, urbanisation and globalisation threaten the security of UK and global food supplies. Separately and together, these factors are driving the emergence of new virus infections which threaten the productivity of our livestock, including poultry and aquaculture, and may, like influenza virus, spread from animals to cause disease in humans."
(He misses out the real threat from the accelerating financial crisis and the imminent loss of cheap energy - but his view of the seriousness of other factors is surely absolutely right.) More on Prof Fazakerley here.

June 19th 2011 ~ Britain is moving towards a "shameful system of factory farming that will destroy the countryside and create a new breed of superbugs".

What is interesting about Dominic West's view, reported in the Sunday Telegraph today, is that the television and Hollywood actor's concern about the human health aspects of factory farming is likely to be taken more seriously than the deep worry the rest of us feel about the erosion of ethics of which factory farming is a symptom. He cares about that too - but reminds us that the overuse of antibiotics in intensive livestock farms (half of all antibiotics in the UK are used on farm animals and 60 per cent of those are given to pigs) is the cause of the dangerous, life-changing new anti-biotic resistant strains of diseases such as MRSA and the recent E-Coli strain in Germany. Without effective antibiotics, life is going to be very, very different for people who become ill.
"The Foston proposal signals a fundamental shift in British farming towards the US and EU system of giant corporate-owned factories confining thousands of pigs in buildings and feeding them antibiotics to keep them alive. Treating pigs as industrial production units on such an intensive level is not only shameful but also unsustainable. It is the antithesis of what people want the British countryside and farming to be and it poses a potential threat to human health and the environment..."
Read in full Like Mr West, one feels that unless something is done to show how very seriously ordinary people feel about this, the country will open its arms to giant factory farms. CIWF and WSPA are doing a good job and need all the support they can get.

June 17th 2011 ~ FMD vaccination "We all agree that the protocols and strategies for decision-making need to be put in place in peacetime so let's get on and do it." BVA

In his Speech (pdf) at the annual Scottish Dinner of the British Veterinary Association, its president, Harvey Locke, outlined the impact of recent changes in the risk of disease, in new scientific knowledge and understanding, in consumer attitudes and in the veterinary profession itself. He said that the role of vaccination in an FMD outbreak was a key issue and referred to "the excellent seminar" held at Moredun in partnership with the NFUS and Scottish Government about the need for FMD vaccination to live.
".....Summing up the day Julie Fitzpatrick said 'We have the tools and technologies to deal with FMDV if we wish to do so - what is missing are the policies and strategies that we would require.'
We all agree that the protocols and strategies for decision-making need to be put in place in peacetime so let's get on and do it...."
Many are indeed hoping that the protocols and strategies will be put in place before the next FMD crisis. But this is what we hoped in 2001 and yet, in 2007, because of ignorance, inertia and a wish not to spend any money that might not result in profits, the UK and DEFRA sat on its hands, having learned nothing.
The next outbreak of this manageable disease must not result in yet another panicky response of unnecessary killing when the tools to manage it have been available for so long. Vaccination is there for use at the earliest possible stage - but the present, frankly idiotic, policy is to wait to deploy it until large numbers of animals are threatened. State of the art RT-PCR diagnostic technology for use at the point of need can predict clinical signs before they appear - but not even mentioned in the UK Contingency Plan. One hopes that the BVA with its influence can get this situation reversed before it is too late and put pressure on the EU to change its unscientific vaccination rules so that Member States are free to use emergency vaccination without incurring an EU imposed trade disadvantage.

June 16th 2011 ~ "alternative technologies to oil will take a long time to develop and deploy at scale"

In public, politicians have consistently played down what the end of cheap energy might mean for agriculture, for business and for the population - all so dependent on cheap oil that it has seemed an enduring and unalienable right in the lifetimes of all of us. Now, thanks to the determination of Lionel Badal, an English research student, a report by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) on the risks and impacts of the coming oil crunch is finally and reluctantly published,
"...if peak oil happened before 2015, this would have significant negative economic consequences for some of the main importers of UK goods and services resulting in a negative impact on the UK economy in the longer term." and that "alternative technologies to oil will take a long time to develop and deploy at scale" ...."
Unfortunately, as the expert Nicole Foss explained last year at the Transition Conference (MP3)
"...It would take 50 solid years of supply from either 32,000 (1.65Kw) wind turbines, 4 Three Gorges Dams, or 92 million solar PV panels (2.1Kw), to match the energy we consume from the cubic mile of oil we use each year. Scaling up any of these technologies in anything like the time frame needed is inconceivable."
Meanwhile, the lemming-like dash to build giant turbines will make money for those pocketing giant subsidies but will destroy the most beautiful parts of wild Britain and this in exchange for a pitiful return in terms of usable energy. (Compare intermittant wind energy with the 90% efficiency of the Salter Duck scheme, shelved in highly dubious circumstances thirty years ago)

June 16th 2011 ~" Britain is going to be in trouble.... You have to do things locally..."

As Nicole Foss and others have striven to point out, what you get in a depression are "beggar thy neighbour" policies, protectionism, trade wars and countries retaliating against each other when there are import tariffs imposed.
"...Unfortunately, shipping is dependent on letters of credit and letters of credit are not available during a credit crunch, which means almost a guarantee of supply disruption down the line. The more you can produce here the less vulnerable you are....we have outsourced the production of so many things to other countries...." Listen in full
As she says, the agribusiness model depends on cheap oil, cheap water, cheap fertilisers and parts manufactured abroad. The combined effects of the financial crisis and the coming energy crunch will make this unviable.
We read at the Ecologist that the DECC report was "slipped out last Wednesday in the middle of one of the most important meetings in the history of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. That summit broke up in disarray after Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil producer, failed to win agreement from hardline states such as Iran to turn the taps on to help oil consuming countries in the west."
(More on peak oil page, updated since 2004.)
The UK Industry Task Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security, led by Dr Jeremy Leggett, has been warning - without much success - since 2008 that the effects of the oil crunch must be seriously prepared for. Add to the coming oil crunch the way populations are increasingly angry at the way the risk-free Ponzi schemes of the powerful seem to leave ordinary people carrying the bill, civil unrest is looking ever more likely to spread to the UK.

June 14th 2011 ~ "the greatest scope for improving livelihood and equity exists in small-scale, diversified production systems"

In its guide to policy makers, "Save and Grow", published yesterday, the FAO says that intensive crop production since the 1960s has degraded soils, depleted ground water and caused pest outbreaks. It refers back to IAASTD which called for "a shift from current farming practices to sustainable agriculture systems capable of providing both significant productivity increases and enhanced ecosystem services". "Save and Grow" takes a closer look at the so-called Green Revolution. Its
"...enormous gains in agricultural production and productivity were often accompanied by negative effects on agriculture's natural resource base, so serious that they jeopardize its productive potential in the future... It is also clear that the current food production and distribution systems are failing to feed the world. The number of undernourished people in 2010 was estimated at 925 million, higher than it was 40 years ago...environmentally harmful (or "perverse") subsidies, which encourage the use of natural resources in ways that destroy biodiversity, need to be carefully evaluated and, when appropriate, reformulated or removed."
The overview of the FAO's book is here. (No "major shift" can realistically depend on continuing cheap oil, cheap water, cheap credit and parts manufactured abroad that need to be shipped vast distance to farms. The biofuels somewhat enthusiastically mentioned in the FAO guide seem controversial since the net energy return on these is pitiful, making profits for those who produce them but adding very little to the energy needs of the future.)

June 13th 2011 ~ Vaccination against Bluetongue was so successful that it is now banned....

Thanks to many factors (including the stringent rules in France that demanded full scale vaccination) the UK is now able to announce "Freedom from BTV8" backdated to Tuesday July 5th 2011. The EU, in its inimitable way with such things, has decided NOT to change the rules in order to allow vaccination in any Bluetongue Free Area. It will now be illegal to use Bluetongue vaccine in UK. Animals moving out of the UK will do so without being vaccinated.
(Does anyone share our feelings of astonishment? Are we missing something? Once again, trade issues seem to be overriding the boon of modern veterinary medicine. DEFRA is apparently saying it will continue to press the EU to allow vaccination in the free area - but here we need expert help. How does one quickly find up-to-date DEFRA information on Bluetongue? Doing a Google search sends one on an ever more frustrating circular tour in and out of their old website and the DEFRA search engine seems even worse. Evidently it is we who are doing something wrong since no modern governmental department website could possibly be as difficult to navigate as this? Could it?)
Harvey Locke, BVA President, is quoted in a BVA press release:
"...We are disappointed that changes to the EU Directive to allow vaccination to continue could not be made before the deadline and we will continue to work with Defra to try to secure this change as soon as possible to allow vets and farmers to make the right choice to protect their herds. Those farmers and vets that wish to vaccinate must do so before the 5th July."
The BVA repeats its message to farmers to ensure that they are sourcing stock "responsibly".

June 9th 2011 ~ Helen Browning: ".. they were right to pull the plug, rather than force a vote that the audience was clearly unhappy and confused about."

On the subject of the WI AGM yesterday, Helen Browning's blog:
"...The trouble is, this stuff is complex.... If the debate had been about whether systems of farming are acceptable in which pigs tails have to be cut off to stop them mutilating each other, or where antibiotics are routinely used, or where farmers are paid less than the cost of production, maybe we could have come to a conclusion.... We cannot afford to replicate a too-big-to-fail banking system on food production. ..."Read in full

June 9th 2011 ~ "if these 'mega farms' succeed, then they will inevitably drive out our smaller scale family farms, just as the multiple retailers out competed the greengrocers, butchers and bakers from our high streets."

Helen Browning's speech to the Women's Institute yesterday. Extract:
"..... I am a farmer. I tenant a 1350 acre dairy, pig, beef and arable farm in Wiltshire, so I do really understand the challenges facing our industry today. The pressure on farmers to produce affordable, sustainable food and be guardians of the countryside, at a time of rising feed and other costs is putting a strain on all of our businesses. And this pressure is likely to continue as we face the future: with growing populations, a global increase in meat and dairy consumption and cheap imports of food from abroad.
But the solution is not to create huge-scale operations that threaten that which we hold dear about our landscape, farming and rural communities. Large-scale industrial farms may be able to produce food a little more cheaply in the short term, mostly through reducing the number and cost of people employed, as automation diminishes the need for husbandry skills. But the price we will pay for marginally cheaper food will be high indeed.... if these 'mega farms' succeed, then they will inevitably drive out our smaller scale family farms, just as the multiple retailers out competed the greengrocers, butchers and bakers from our high streets. If they fail, then their acres of concrete will have no other use, but will tarnish our landscapes indefinitely.... " Read in full

June 8th 2011 ~ FMD Yet more concern about safety at Pirbright

There have been two recent safety breaches: an incident where a flask containing FMD virus was cracked, and a leak of "waste liquid" in an incinerator room. Both incidents were "reported immediately to relevant authorities"
NFU president Peter Kendall is quoted in the article at Vetsonline: "This is unwelcome news particularly for livestock farmers who remember the devastating impact of the last outbreak of FMD in this country... Another release of FMD virus cannot be allowed to happen. This issue raises further questions about the cost and responsibility agenda, not least the responsibility of ensuring that the livestock industry is not asked to bear the brunt of disease outbreaks which are not of its making."

June 8th 2011 ~ Women's Institute AGM fails to vote on the issue of mega farms

In an unprecedented move, after members of the WI began to complain that the wording of the resolution was not good enough, it was decided to shelve the issue of megafarms. There was no vote. See below, however, for the main points made during the debate. An AGM committee member asked for the issue to be debated in a "clear and accountable" debate with all sides represented, next year.

June 8th 2011 ~ "We don't have to follow the American way of farming" Helen Browning

Women's Institute AGM 'This resolution is not simply against large mega farms, but all intensive farming...Farming has to be able to evolve but the farmer shouldn't be taken out of farming & replaced with a profit-driven enterprise' The Factory Farming debate at the Women's Institute AGM is in progress and Helen Browning is about to speak. Updates as soon as they appear (so please refresh the page) - and very many thanks to Caroline Stocks, Deputy News Editor at the Farmers Weekly, who is there and tweeting the highlights as fast as she can type.
Helen Browning: "What you decide will be a clear signal to policy makers about whether society is ready to accept a new era for the countryside... We dont have to follow the American way of farming. Supersizing does not guanrantee food security.'
Peter Kendall: "Both the WI and NFU want to put more British food on plates and help Britain's farmers to thrive" but the President of the NFU adds that the NFU has "real worries about this resolution" He says, "Bigger farms can provide consistency, benefits to economy and health... What matters is whether stockmanship reaches top levels, not how many animals there are." Mr Kendall warns the WI, "If you approve this, the support the WI can generate means you could do real damage to the future of British farming." While accepting that there is a place for organic and locally sourced food, he asks the old question (which assumes that poorer people don't care about animal welfare) "Why shouldn't poorer people have the choice to buy British?" Helen Browning says, "We have had a quantam leap in scale and when that's combined with housing animals & increasing yields, scale is an issue" (More on "scale" below)
Audience applause was given to a dairy farming member of the WI who feared the vote would be based on emotion rather than fact.

June 6th 2011 ~ Helen Browning ".. we need to ensure that we're clear on the future direction for farming ....avoid sleep-walking into a situation that neither the public nor most farmers want."

The splendid Director of the Soil Association (whom I once met while feeding a surreptitious biscuit over the fence to one of her pigs in Shrivenham) is speaking at the Women's Institute AGM on Wednesday, in support of the motion
"This meeting abhors the practice of factory farming particularly large animals such as pigs and cows, and urges HM government to ensure planning permission is not granted for such projects."
As the Soil Association blog says:
"...one thing that I'm certain of is that this motion isn't about organic versus non-organic farming - that's not the issue at all. It's more about scale, the appropriateness of scale, and the impact of these proposed "mega" units on the wider environment and community.
Many non-organic farmers and groups (including the Environment Agency) have concerns about these really large-scale animal production units. And we need to ensure that we're clear on the future direction for farming they imply, and avoid sleep-walking into a situation that neither the public nor most farmers want. This means an open debate about how we grow our food, what we eat, and how we ensure a fair outcome for all, now and in the future."
Read in full

June 6th 2011 ~ We need an agricultural system "that puts diversity at its heart and respects the limits of the natural world"

Who will reforge the links of trust?"asks Joanna Blythman in yesterday's Observer. In spite of all the rules imposed by national and international food safety bodies, supposed "biosecurity", talk of "field to fork" and boasts about EFRSA's "rapid alert" system, we still get global panics such as that in the wake of Germany's assumptions about the source of the _E. coli_ [O104:H4]. The mass refusal to eat fresh vegetables and fruit, the heartbreaking sight of so many tons of good fresh vegetables being dumped, the anguish in Spain, and the knee-jerk protectionism of Russia makes one realise that there is something very rotten in the state of our food chain. Germany understands that these bacteria show unusual antimicrobial resistance characteristics - i.e. that they are resistant to antibiotics. Joanna Blythman's article reminds us that the MRSA newly discovered in British cows, resistant to key groups of antibiotics, is very probably due to routine use of such antibiotics on intensive livestock units. "... of such a scale that they amplify the impact of all the public health time bombs that our industrial food systems cooks up." Her solution is what the far-sighted have been advocating for years: safe food needs a radically different model. One that
"no longer concentrates power and control of the food chain in the hands of a few global corporations and interest groups, at the expense of everyone else, one that puts diversity at its heart and respects the limits of the natural world"
Factory farms may be "efficient" but, as James Howard Kunstler has memorably said, "Efficiency is the straightest path to hell." In the name of financial efficiency we have driven out all our safety margins. We need localisation. The urgency of the situation is summed up by George Soros:
"The collapse of the global market place would be a traumatic event with unimaginable consequences. Yet I find it easier to imagine than the continuation of the present regime."

June 3rd 2011 ~ "...we're able to take our device, literally plug it in to the cigarette lighter of a car, and run molecular diagnostic tests out in the field..."

Interview with Gerrit Viljoen, Head of the Animal Section of the International Atomic Energy Agency on the subject of portable on-site diagnosis "...we want them to be used at the point where they do the diagnosis..In the animal field, in the veterinary field we really need them at the "point of care".
"... we're able to take our device, literally plug it in to the cigarette lighter of a car, and run molecular diagnostic tests out in the field.. the platform technology is there to do all the range of pathogens and viruses.... In your back pocket you will have let's say a library of five or six different cassettes having the building blocks of the different tests: Newcastle Disease, Avian Influenza,Swine Flu, Foot and Mouth disease..." (MP3)
The GeneStat portable diagnostic kit has been described (to an English interviewer) by Craig Mosman, Vice President, DxNA: "Our system processes the sample and gives a result within 45 minutes" If a central lab is used, there is delay while the samples are sent, then several hours of sample preparation and only then a result "in an hour or two" Extract - audio file - :
"... The system carries with it our remote reporting capability - you can have a test being done at a remote laboratory, "pen-side" as we say or in a remote village, and communicate those results back to a central laboratory or indeed back to any other spot on earth.....Because the sample is not transported back to a Central Laboratory, it's actually done on-site, we are able to save hours, or in some cases even days...we're able to take our device, literally plug it in to the cigarette lighter of a car, and run molecular diagnostic tests out in the field..."
Listen in full

June 3rd 2011 ~ "the collaboration with the FAO in the establishment of a portable and mobile diagnostic system that demonstrates high sensitivity and specificity characteristics, but is also affordable throughout the world."

Mass slaughter is not necessary with modern surveillance diagnostic and response capabilities. Eighteen months ago, the publication Virus Weekly reported that the DxNA GeneSTAT PCR System had successfully completed its evaluation and quoted DxNA Chief Executive Officer Phillip Grimm who acknowledged the importance of the collaboration with the FAO in the establishment of "a portable and mobile diagnostic system that demonstrates high sensitivity and specificity characteristics, but is also affordable throughout the world."
Pirbright collaborated with the Smiths Detection system (Bioseeq) and thousands of pounds were spent in research grants by DEFRA (see below). In 2007 the Smiths system looked promising but seems now to have dropped out of sight. Is that a reason for the UK not to use the DxNA system, already evaluated and proven in the field? We should be very grateful if anyone were able to explain to us via email why the UK continues to prevaricate when such an affordable portable diagnostic system, backed by the FAO and IAEA, successfully evaluated, already available and in use - is not even mentioned in the current UK Contingency Plan. The e-coli outbreak in Germany provides a stark reminder of how easy today it is for a pathogen to get a hold and spread. Our island is not immune to the viruses and bacteria that threaten both animal and human health - and they can arrive at any moment.

May 31st 2011 ~ Genestat machine is ideally suited to early detection of foot and mouth

An email received suggested that the rapid diagnosis machines mentioned below are "not yet 100% accurate - though under continual appraisal at Pirbright".
We find the lengths to which the UK has gone in order to prevaricate until it can produce its own commercial machine quite extraordinary. David King said ten years ago, when justifying that he chose not to use the USDA rapid detection machine offered to the UK for tests, that it was not "validated" - (the same machine was used in Uruguay's FMD crisis with excellent results.) David King omitted to mention on that Today Programme that the mathematical model that drove the mass culling policy, used instead of vaccination, was itself "unvalidated" and was highly flawed.
Hundreds of thousands of UK taxpayers' money have been poured into developing the Smiths Detection BioSeeq machine with which Pirbright collaborated. Yet this machine, although excellent, proved too expensive for commercial use. The DxNA machine, on the other hand, is already accessible and, as the website says,
"The advent of GeneStat PCR means that DNA and RNA analyses can now be accurately and rapidly done almost anywhere, indoors or outdoors, by virtually anybody."
This does, of course, mean the end of the monopoly enjoyed for so long by the laboratories which were alone allowed to handle samples in the past. It would be unusual were there not the extreme reluctance we are seeing from those involved. But that the GeneStat can be operated by "virtually anybody" I know at first hand. This was the machine I handled personally in Brussels at the end of the 'Towards a Durable Global Animal Health Policy' conference when I learned within five minutes how to use it. (Please note that I have no financial interest at all in anything mentioned on this website.)

May 30th 2011 ~ Nigel Gibbens:" these types of tests aren't currently practical for use on the ground during an outbreak" But DxNA Genestat would seem to prove the CVO mistaken

Available on-site rapid PCR diagnosis, validated and less expensive than others, is the DxNA system. www.dxna.com: "...transportation of samples to large, centralized laboratories creates issues with sample degradation, contamination, cost, and delays...Long-awaited, point-of-care technology..DxNA has developed a diagnostic platform technology allows individuals with approximately five minutes of training to conduct accurate real-time diagnostic testing almost anywhere." Highly infectious and contagious pathogens detected by the system include Foot and Mouth Disease as well as many others such as Anthrax, African Swine Fever, Exotic Newcastle Disease, Classic Swine Fever, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (More)
The UK and DEFRA continue to claim (See the UK's Chief Vet, Nigel Gibbens, Guardian 5 May 2011)
".. these types of tests aren't currently practical for use on the ground during an outbreak...we are continuing to fund their development..."
How can DEFRA continue to assert that such technology hasn't been properly developed yet and is not as yet, as effective as laboratory testing, when DxNA dares to make such claims for the efficacy of GeneStat? When the new Woolhouse/Charleston research was published, DEFRA argued for
"... strong support for investment in the development of practical tools for preclinical diagnosis..."
Surely, the funding urgently needed now is not to spend vital taxpayers' money in reinventing a wheel that is already proven and effective - but to obtain the already proven Genestat technology. DEFRA's intention, apparent from the words of the CVO, to pour yet more thousands into research, is inexplicable. Six years of funding between 2003 and 2009 spent by DEFRA on (Projects SE1120, SE1123) have not produced anything that has found its way into DEFRA's Contingency Plan - yet the proven DxNA machine is already developed and apparently available for purchase.

May 30th 2011 ~ Is DEFRA aware of the following points from the DxNA website about the cheapest, most effective - and already available - on-site diagnosis system?

An effective, affordable (compared to the enormous financial and social costs involved in an outbreak) system - but is DEFRA aware of it? See the following points from the DxNA website?
Drawbacks of DxNA's competitors:
• Commercial systems purported to be portable are too bulky for convenient transport. Samples still require labor-intensive, manual preparation. In contrast, this is fully automated with DxNA technology.
• Considerable time is required to obtain reportable results
• Higher costs of devices and tests
• Higher power demands
Unique aspects of DxNA's technology:
• Speed: results in 60 minutes or less
• Ease of use: the need for highly-trained technicians is eliminated
• Portability: lightweight and can be powered through a wall outlet or car battery
• Lyophilzed PCR reagents: stable without refrigeration
• Accuracy: unique, closed system rendering valid, trusted data
• Economical: less costly than current real-time PCR technologies
• Multiplexed assays test for three targets at the same time.
As the ProMed moderator, Dr Martin Hugh Jones, said this month ".... tests must be run cow-side. There is no time for the delays inherent in sending off samples to a distant laboratory.... if you can get ahead of the disease, time is on your side...."

May 27th 2011 ~ Vaccination - "We must have common sense along the food chain We must avoid mass slaughter...": Declan O'Brien, IFAH-Europe Managing Director

Last week in Brussels saw the Conference on Crisis Management in the Food Chain. (All the presentations are here) O'Brien's powerpoint presentation emphasises that produce from vaccinated animals is safe, that practically all animals are vaccinated anyway, that we must have common sense along the food chain and
"We must avoid mass slaughter to the greatest extent possible by using vaccines as appropriate Every stakeholder along the food chain has a responsibility to ensure that we apply the concept of 'vaccination to live'..."
He makes it very clear that provided animals for export have been vaccinated correctly from the EU vaccine Bank
" We should not have a situation where a Member State that is free of a disease refuses to accept produce from vaccinated animals from another Member State ..(subject to risk assessment from the threat of disease transmission via produce)"
Sadly, Nigel Gibbens, the UK Chief Veterinary Officer, had nothing new or encouraging to say. The O'Brien presentation, on the other hand, was the most encouraging we have seen in ten years:
• We should have pragmatic benefit/risk assessment
• The CVMP should have the power to propose an EU authorisation based on a benefit/risk assessment
• The antigen/vaccine bank should be completed with all Member States accepting use of such products
• Food safety should not be challenged
• We need rapid assessment powers for all vaccines to be able to respond to crises
• Facilitate replacement of an antigen via a Variation - fast track in a crisis
• We can do it better in the future!
Read in full (pdf)

May 27th 2011 ~ "Mathematical models are useful for predicting how  outbreaks will spread, but in order to make the models  accurate, we need to supply them with data about how  disease spreads in the real world."

Simon Cauchemez of Imperial College is quoted in an impressive presentation by Tony Barnet at the 2011 Conference on Crisis Management in the Food Chain. It takes a balanced look at the computer modelling of disease and points out dangers such as the possible links between modelling and the  pharmaceutical industry - links which can influence profits and markets (e.g. pre-ordering of Tamiflu)
It will be remembered that the computer model that drove FMD policy in 2001 (ironically, also from Imperial College) was unvalidated and its data were tragically flawed - resulting in the mass killing of uninfected animals- including rare breeeds, breeding stock and people's pets. It was devised not by available and willing experts familiar with the Pan Asia 'O' foot and mouth strain of the crisis - but by epidemiologists and bio-mathematicians who had no experience of it at all.
There has never been official acknowledgement of the damage it caused. As Kitching, Thrusfield, and Taylor wrote in 2006 " Scientific experts must be accountable, not only to government ministers but also to other experts." (More)

May 26th 2011 ~ "Quarantine was applied and all animals were subsequently vaccinated."

On the day that news emerges via the BBC and the Farmers Guardian of two FMD accidents this year at Pirbright, it is salutary to see how an outbreak of foot and mouth in Taiwan was found and dealt with very quickly by means of vaccination.
FMD serotype O, was found during routine FMD serological surveillance at a Taiwanese pig farm on May 6th. All 123 pigs on the farm were clinically healthy and showed no symptoms.
"Fifteen serum and throat swab samples for serological tests and virus isolation were collected and sent to the National Laboratory (Animal Health Research Institute). The presence of O serotype was demonstrated by using FMD virus ELISA on May 10. Quarantine was applied and all animals were subsequently vaccinated." (Read in full)
As Vetsweb puts it, "The event was considered resolved on May 16"
Ten days from testing to resolution. Compare this with the last UK crisis when, following a previous accident at Pirbright, FMD was confirmed early in August 2007. It is hard, even now, to remember without anger that we knew the source, we knew the strain, we had the exactly matched vaccine up the road. In spite of all the lessons that might have been learned from 2001, officialdom refused its use, deciding as before to protect exports by sacrificing animals and farmers' peace of mind. But the disease was uncooperative with such attempts to "bear down" on it, and continued to spread. In October of that year, the NFU's Anthony Gibson, was saying: "...we think the total cost to the farming industry is around £250 million in terms of lost exports and lower meat prices."

May 25th 2011 ~ "We had the know-how. We had the vaccine. What was missing was adequate and targeted investment and a cohesive global coordinating mechanism." Cattle Plague has finally been eradicated globally.

Vaccination has seen off rinderpest (cattle plague) one of the world's most dreaded animal diseases. "There is no reason why we couldn't see other diseases brought to global extinction," says Dr Peter Roeder, Secretary of the Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme from 2000 to 2007
"Once a dream, rinderpest eradication is now a reality. ... If we can truly learn the lessons from rinderpest eradication there is no reason why we couldn't see other diseases brought to global extinction with similar pro-poor and economic impact."
The global freedom from rinderpest status will be ratified by Ministers of Agriculture at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) conference in June. As the BVA reminds us today, it was rinderpest that led to the formation of the OIE in 1924. The BVA statement today. pays tribute to two British vets, the late Gordon Scott, a rinderpest researcher, and the late Walter Plowright who developed the tissue culture rinderpest vaccine. As the FAO's Chief Veterinary Officer puts it
"This is a disease that has been an absolute scourge in agriculture for millennia.....the solution was simple. We had the know-how. We had the vaccine. What was missing was, in the first place, adequate and targeted investment, and, secondly, a cohesive global coordinating mechanism. Once we had those, solving the problem was just a matter of time. "
See FAO report in full.

May 24th 2011 ~ UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security finally gets Government to admit it takes Peak Oil seriously

Chris Huhne has agreed to develop an 'Oil Shock Response Plan', following a meeting with the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES). Many have now understood the worrying fact that there is insufficient spare capacity for oil producers to meet demand. The taskforce members also revealed that Huhne had called on them to present their concerns to the Chancellor and Treasury - a meeting that the group is now seeking. A DECC spokesman told BusinessGreen that the department will publish a formal "call for evidence" from interested parties in the near future as it works to develop the new Oil Shock Response Plan.
If anyone still does not appreciate what oil has done to build our world (88 million barrels a day at the moment) and what is going to happen when we wake up to global oil collapse - this Australian YouTube video is authoritive, including an interview with IEA chief economist Fatih Birol and even the IEA now admits crude oil production peaked in 2006. (We have reported on the issue since 2004. Oil page "Get your flying in quickly, let us say...")

May 24th 2011 ~ Grocery Ombudsman - the draft bill is 52 pages long...

It can be read here (pdf). As Andrew George said, "No excuse for further delay" - What we must call the "Groceries Code Adjudicator" will be able to fine supermarkets that breach grocery code and allow complainants to remain anonymous. Alasatair Driver's piece in the Farmers Gardian today (extract):
"...Introducing the full Bill after May 2012 means the Adjudicator is unlikely to be in place until 2013 or even 2014. The previous Government accepted the recommendation and went as far as consulting on the ombudsman before last year's General Election defeat. The Coalition pledged to press ahead with the policy but the draft Bill has been slower in coming than initially expected.
Farming Minister Jim Paice said recently that he appreciated farmers' frustrations at the delay and insisted Defra Ministers were putting 'huge pressure' on their Business counterparts to speed the process up.
Mr Paice insisted he had not given up hope of a full Bill in the first session of Parliament before May 2012."
Warmwell's background posts to the issue of the supermarket ombudsman date back to February 2009.

May 23rd 2011 ~ UK declared "Disease free" in January 2002- but DEFRA had been killing FMD antibody positive (recovered) livestock through October to January 2002

An emailer writes:
"With regard to Alan Beat's comments on Morley and the Brecon Beacons killing, I feel there was further dishonesty from Elliot Morley when applying for disease free status for the UK. It was claimed that there were no more cases of FMD after September 2001, thus enabling Mr Morley/the UK to apply for formally recognised Disease Free Status on 14 January, 2002, after a period of being apparently disease free. However, Defra was killing FMD antibody positive livestock through October to January 2002, the last "case" being the killing of 2000 sheep in Northumberland on 1 January, 2002. If Mr Morley regarded the antibody positive sheep of the Brecon Beacons as such a threat regarding spreading FMD (i.e. harbouring live virus) thus justifying the mass killing of Brecon sheep, why was this "great threat" apparently hidden from the EU in the months from October to January? As far as the EU were informed, we were disease free in that period. Mr Morley cannot have it both ways."
The status of "disease free without vaccination" has a lot to answer for. A global trading advantage perhaps but, as the ProMed. moderator MHJ said last week, "...there is a ground shift going on in Europe to follow the South American lead and use vaccination, not slaughter, to control this disease"

May 23rd 2011 ~ "Morley's role was specifically to deceive the farming community and general public into accepting that the policy was both effective and legal, when it was demonstrably neither..."Alan Beat

Readers who know Alan Beat will not be surprised to read that he has written a short piece about the sending to prison of Elliot Morley. Mr Morley was the DEFRA Minister during the 2001 foot and mouth debacle, who, as Alan puts it,
"...discharged this role with considerable vigour as a swaggering, strong-arm enforcer backed by a large parliamentary majority. His public pronouncements during the foot and mouth epidemic were frequently challenged by those with knowledge of the situation, but Morley brushed these contemptuously aside, while the media in general conspicuously failed to give balanced coverage of the issues...Morley's statements to the press on the disease status of sheep being slaughtered on the Brecon Beacons were factually incorrect and misleading. ...
.. Morley swaggered onwards, doing the job he'd been appointed for, virtually unopposed. I think it was Nick Green of Cumbria who coined the nickname "Elliot More-lies" that was fully justified at the time for anyone who cared to look..." Read in full
A notorious example - and one that caused great distress, was DEFRA's rigorous and unjustified killing of uninfected animals in 3 km circles around any premises only suspected of having disease. Mr Morley, when questioned by the EFRA Committee on November 6th 2001 said that the 3 km killing in Cumbria, for which there were no legal powers in 2001, was "voluntary". He later told Cumbrian MP David Maclean MP that farmers "may have been informed all such culls were voluntary" but that they were compulsory.
Mr Morley is in prison for other lies - but unlike Mr Justice Saunders, we do not recognise Mr Morley's "public service". There are others in the news who abuse the power they have rather than defending justice and protection for those who have none. It is called corruption - something rotten in the state..

May 23rd 2011 ~"On the risks of persistence of FMD circulation in wild boar/wildlife in South-East Bulgaria and Turkish Thrace"

Turkish Thrace has been recognised by the OIE as an "FMD free zone with vaccination" since May 2010 - but the fact that roaming wild boar have been found to be sero positive (See ProMed yesterday) shows that FMD is still circulating in wildlife in Thrace - the part of Turkey that borders Bulgaria. The unvaccinated animals over the border in Bulgaria are susceptible to FMD - with grim results (as documented on this page) for animals and farmers. This extract via ProMed from EuFMD Research group/FAO EMPRES Wildlife Unit Joint Meeting Berlin, 11-12 April 2011, entitled "On the risks of persistence of FMD circulation in wild boar/wildlife in South-East Bulgaria and Turkish Thrace" at which Ryan Waters from IAH Pirbright was present, is interesting. Extract:
"...Since FMD in western Europe became rare after 1970, as a result of mass vaccination, and WB (wild boar) populations have increased in the period, the risks associated with WB may need to be revised.... this region is an extensive area with limited domestic animals within the forest; recent cases in Bulgaria are on the more western edges, where forest gives way to more populated valleys with denser and more continuous domestic animal [populations]..."
As the report emphasises: "FMD in western Europe became rare after 1970 as a result of mass vaccination" One of the conclusions of the report is that "FMDV infection can be expected to persist through 2011 in the ecosystem, with risk to domestic animals principally at the forest edges and within the forest" Read in full

May 19th 2011 ~ Plans for Foston 2,500-pig factory farm "fail to address pollution risks"

As with Nocton mega dairy, arguments about the rotten ethics of factory farming are apparently not to be considered. (A spokesman for Nocton said such concerns came solely from "misinformed single interest pressure groups" ) However, if plans can be shown to be unsound on environmental grounds then the Environment Agency can step in with objections that carry weight. Farmers Weekly today reports that their :
".....verdict is contained in a letter to Derbyshire County Council.
"The applicant has not supplied adequate information to demonstrate that the risks posed to groundwater can be satisfactorily managed," the agency said. "We recommend that planning permission should be refused on this basis."
This does not seem to have worried the planners. A spokeswoman for Midland Pig Producers said: "It appears we are being asked for information that was not requested in the original scoping agreement. We will now provide this information as soon as possible."

May 14th 2011 ~ Tim Farron has found one in four Cumbrian hill farmers fail to claim payments they are entitled to because they are put off by the paper work,

As we say below with reference to the Contingency Plan, is worth emphasising again the importance of simplicity, plain English and a minimum of form filling when government attempts to communicate with the people concerned 'on the ground'. Mr Farron, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hill Farming, has discovered that hundreds of Cumbrian hill farmers are being put off claiming subsidies because of the complexity of the paper work. The Westmorland Gazette quotes him today:
"...It is definitely happening to a signficant minority of upland farmers. One in four farmers don't claim the subsidies because they say there is too much red tape involved in the process.
Hill farmers are very busy and they can't always spare the time to fill in the forms. Some farmers, especially the older ones, are often put off by the amount of red tape involved in making a claim under the stewardship scheme..."
Westmorland Gazette article. The hill farmers' plight is also mentioned below.

May 13th 2011 ~ It is the last day to respond to DEFRA's Consultation on their latest Contingency Plan

The Consultation plan (pdf) is here. Responses might perhaps draw attention to the Science paper published last week that shows that the new research has "significantly altered scientists' thinking about FMD" and that "what we thought we knew about foot and mouth disease is not entirely true." The plan needs re-thinking from scratch.
• animals' 1.7 day "window of infection" makes the mass pre-emptive culling - and it has never been ruled out - a literal case of overkill.
• The notion of merely "considering" vaccination until large numbers of animals are threatened is based on money and politics not science.
• The extraordinary fact that the plan makes no mention at all of available "cow-side" rapid diagnostic kits (available for a decade) - particularly since the researchers Woolhouse & Charleston et al now say how essential it is that they be developed in the UK (funding needed to reinvent the wheel again?)
• The lack of FMD experts with field experience among those who would "advise" the Secretary of State
• The discussions at the Scottish FMD Moredun Conference resulted in Scotland moving towards vaccination to live in any future outbreak. The various presentations are worth reading
• If the plan is designed to be read by the people actually affected by foot and mouth it is far too complicated. People want to know what to expect, what the procedures are, and the time scale. They are not impressed by jargon - acronyms and expressions such as "bird-table meetings" They want clear common sense in good plain English.
Few people now want to look back in anger. They are too tired and too anxious that the future should not make the mistakes of the past. DEFRA page and here is our (rather too long) warmwell.com submission, sent yesterday

May 12th 2011 ~ Fukushima - worse and worse, but an attempt is being made to rescue abandoned pets

The Telegraph reports today on TEPCO's admission that there has indeed been "meltdown" in the fuel rods of No.1 reactor: "Inland from the plant, there has been a huge cull of the livestock left inside the 18-mile mandatory exclusion zone with thousands of cows, horses and pigs being destroyed and some 260,000 chickens from the town of Minamisoma alone.
The Environment ministry has announced, however, that it will attempt to rescue the thousands of pets that were left behind when residents were ordered to evacuate. At least 5,800 dogs were owned by the residents of the zone, although it is unclear how many remain alive, two months after the earthquake struck."

May 12th 2011 ~ "about to publish proposals..."

Mr Paice said today (Hansard) that the Government "are about to publish proposals - we trust with all-party support - for a groceries code adjudicator. "
It seems a long time since we were first discussing the possible arrival of the Groceries Ombudsman

May 12th 2011 ~ Horse passports: "Will the Minister re-examine that legal advice from 2005 to work out whether it might be possible to make horse ID cards voluntary rather than compulsory?"

Hansard today i:
"Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con): When my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) and I were campaigning long and hard against the introduction of compulsory horse passports - identification cards for horses - legal advice to DEFRA was that Ministers had three options. The first was to seek to extend the EU derogation on the subject for a further 10 years, the second was to bring in a minimal regime so that horses at abattoirs would have to have some kind of documentation, and the third was an all-singing, all-dancing, bells and whistles option, requiring every zebra, donkey, horse and pony in the land to have an ID card. Will the Minister re-examine that legal advice from 2005 to work out whether it might be possible to make horse ID cards voluntary rather than compulsory?
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice): I am very much aware of my hon. Friend's passion for this issue, some of which I share. The advice I have received is that the decision that the previous Government unsurprisingly made to develop the most bureaucratic and regulatory option is irreversible, but I am more than happy to look at it again."
(In February 2005 we reported that thousands of horse, pony and donkey owners faced a maximum fine of £5,000 if they failed to comply with EU regulations to buy passports for their animals and pay a vet to fill in a silhouette identifying markings. About 500,000 horse passports have been registered. But up to a further half a million are still not covered. Bob Spink MP called the horse passport " a disgraceful regulation.simply being pursued to feed the cruel and poorly regulated European slaughterhouses - largely to provide horsemeat for the salami trade ... " More)

May 11th 2011 ~ "The Science paper, if nothing else, provides sufficient evidence to demonstrate the sheer futility, not to say inhumanity, of hunting down and killing healthy pet sheep in the 'safety' of the owner's living room."

This comment, (from someone who evidentlyshares our continuing horror at what happened to Mrs Hoffe's healthy pet sheep in 2001), refers to the full paper by Charleston, Woolhouse et al: "Relationship Between Clinical Signs and Transmission of an Infectious Disease and the Implications for Control" "pdf
Extract: "....controversial preemptive control measures may be unnecessary; instead, efforts should be directed at early detection of infection and rapid intervention....The likelihood of transmission is dramatically decreased if control can be implemented just 24 hours earlier; this effect is greatly under- estimated if proxy measures of infectiousness are used (Fig. 3B). This result provides strong support for investment in the development of practical tools for preclinical diagnosis (20, 21) because the onset of detectable viraemia typically occurs at "1 day before infected cows become infectious and/or show clinical signs..." Read paper in full
DEFRA public consultation on the Contingency Plan ends on Friday. Responses do not need to be long! Details here or email direct to AHHQContingencyPlanning@animalhealth.gsi.gov.uk

May 9th 2011 ~ "Roger makes an excellent point. Any such tests must be run cow-side. There is no time for the delays inherent in sending off samples to a distant laboratory." ProMed moderator

ProMed Mail today gave an overview of the Charleston/Woolhouse research covered here earlier this week and includes both the letter sent by Dr Roger Breeze to warmwell.com on May 5th and the moderator's comments on it. See ProMed. Dr Martin Hugh Jones says (extract):
"Roger makes an excellent point. Any such tests must be run cow-side. There is no time for the delays inherent in sending off samples to a distant laboratory..... As Roger indicates we are getting there..... if you can get ahead of the disease, time is on your side.
On the other hand there is a ground shift going on in Europe to follow the South American lead and use vaccination, not slaughter, to control this disease. - Mod.MHJ"
(Both letter and moderator comment should be read in full)

May 8th 2011 ~ "Why it is that an industrialized system, deeply dependent on fossil fuels and chemical treatments, is promoted as viable, while a much less damaging one is rubbished and condemned as unfit for purpose?"

The Prince of Wales, among some of the best known names in food sustainablilty, made an impressive speech at last week's Future of Food Conference in Washington DC. The video can be watched here - and much of it can be read as a transcript here. Extract:
"... we are told ceaselessly that sustainable or organic agriculture cannot feed the world. I find this claim very hard to understand. Especially when you consider the findings of an impeccably well-researched International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), conducted in 2008 by the U.N....report drew on evidence from more than 400 scientists worldwide and concluded that small-scale, family-based farming systems, adopting so-called agro-ecological approaches, were among the most productive systems in developing countries... for some strange reason, the conclusions of this exhaustive report seem to have vanished without trace. " Read in full
Posts mentioning IAASTD can be seen here.

May 8th 2011 ~ The Prince of Wales' concerns echo those of Dr Don Huber about the urgent need for healthy topsoil

We are now seeing an unprecedented trend of increasing plant and animal diseases and disorders. Dr Huber said in this interview,
"...It's hard to find an acre in the US that hasn't had glyphosate applied on it in the last three years..... it's just a matter of time before we see more serious negative ramifications. We will have increasing toxin levels (in crops), reduced nutrient values, and the direct presence of glyphosate in crops."
Micronutrients such as manganese, copper, potassium, iron, magnesium, calcium, and zinc are essential to human and animal health. Glyphosate is the main ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide used extensively with Roundup Ready genetically modified crops. Earlier this year, Dr Huber wrote a letter to the Obama administration (see below) about a new infectious agent, associated with the use of glyphosate, which
"promotes diseases of both plants and mammals, which is very rare. It is found in high concentrations in Roundup Ready soybean meal and corn, distillers meal, fermentation feed products, pig stomach contents, and pig and cattle placentas."
He wanted time and resources to investigate further before more RoundupReady crops were given the go-ahead. The letter was ignored. Dr. Huber wrote a second letter, in March, to European officials, explaining the issue in more depth. Click here to read the second explanatory letter. As he says, the loss of alfalfa, the United State's most valuable forage crop and fourth most economically important crop, could strike a mortal blow to struggling dairy and beef operations. The necessary research has not been done in these areas.

May 8th 2011 ~ the GM industry will not allow independent research into safety

One of the most alarming aspects of all this is a statement from 26 University Entomologists to the US Environmental Protection Agency dated August 2009, revealing that the GM industry will not allow independent research unless they "approve" it:
"Technology/stewardship agreements required for the purchase of genetically modified seed explicitly prohibit research. These agreements inhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good unless the research is approved by industry. As a result of restricted access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology, its performance, its management implications, IRM, and its interactions with insect biology. Consequently, data flowing to an EPA Scientific Advisory Panel from the public sector is unduly limited."
(IRM means Insect Resistance Management.)

May 8th 2011~ "holy water" laced with arsenic is still being sold illegally to Muslims by UK shops

Genuine Zam Zam water comes from a well in Mecca and is considered holy. It cannot be exported for commercial use although tourists in Saudi Arabia are allowed to take out small amounts. So finding large amounts on sale suggests that people are not only being cheated but actually put in danger. The BBC quotes Dr Yunes Ramadan Teinaz who has been warning about the dangers of this and has done extraordinary work in protecting the UK from contaminated meat. (See Dirty Meat page)
"People see this water as a holy water. They find it difficult to accept that it is contaminated but the authorities in Saudi Arabia or in the UK must take action"

May 7th 2011 ~ The pathogen "deserves immediate attention with significant resources to avoid a general collapse of our critical agricultural infrastructure"

A growing body of scientific evidence has shown that the overuse of Roundup and Glyphosate has created severe micronutrient deficiencies in the soil and plants causing an epidemic of diseases, such as Goss's Wilt on Roundup Ready® corn and Sudden Death Syndrome in Roundup Ready® soybeans. The new and as yet un-named pathogen is associated with this rise in plant diseases - plants which are used for animal feed.
Glyphosate in Monsanto's Roundup has been enthusiastically used by increasing numbers of farmers since the 70s.
A letter from retired military colonel and Professor Emeritus at Purdue University, Don Huber, to the US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsackurged that permission for GMO crops be halted until independent, peer-reviewed studies can be conducted to determine whether or not these products pose a threat to plant, animal and human health.
"I believe we've reached the tipping point toward a potential disaster...It is urgent to examine whether the side effects of glyphosate use may have facilitated the growth of this pathogen, or allowed it to cause greater harm to weakened plant and animal hosts. It is well documented that glyphosate promotes soil pathogens and is already implicated with the increase of more than 40 plant diseases..." (Read letter in full or watch Dr Huber on video)
Within three weeks of the letter's arrival, the Obama administration approved 2 new Roundup Ready® GMO crops. (warmwell.com's GM posts are collected here)

May 6th 2011 ~ Nigel Gibbens: "While these types of tests aren't currently practical for use on the ground during an outbreak, we are continuing to fund their development..."

The Chief Vet is quoted in the Guardian. Could anyone shed light on why he and the UK Government appear still to be unaware of what this website and others have been reporting for ten years about reliable rapid onsite tests? Why such apparently wilful ignorance? Why such continuing refusal from the media to admit that the 2001 mass cull policy was both unnecessary and horribly wrong? We read in the Economist: "The final bill was estimated at around £8 billion...the programme of culling that the government embarked on was probably more aggressive than it needed to be, and that a system of quick detection and isolation of unwell animals might have been sufficient to keep the disease in check."
The BBC's Science Correspondent too is, as always now, anxious not to rock the boat: "Mass culling 'may be unnecessary' ...The scientists said their findings did not suggest the mass slaughter policy during the 2001 UK outbreak was wrong." This will come as no surprise to those who remember that Mark Woolhouse was heavily involved in the mass slaughter policy and was a close associate of Roy Anderson
The excuse for the past ten years is that the UK was acting on the "best scientific advice". No. It was led astray by really appalling advice from the Chief Scientific Advisor in 2001, David King, Imperial's Roy Anderson and the then NFU leader, Ben Gill (all subsequently knighted) They ignored the urgent advice of the international experts and refused the offer from America of just such an onsite diagnostic test (which performed successfully in Uruguay in the same year) that we now hear is the "next challenge".
All the same, if this new research can convince officialdom finally to abandon the hideous mass destruction of farm animals suspected of being infected with foot-and-mouth disease, we would much rather look to the future than to the past.

May 6th 2011 ~ "..this real time PCR test can be performed at the site of the potential foot and mouth outbreak using automated PCR analyzers that do not require a laboratory..."

In response to yesterday's news, we have received an email from Dr Roger Breeze today. Extract:
"Scientists - and British veterinary authorities involved in controlling the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic - have known since early 2001 that a real time PCR test can detect cattle, swine and sheep infected with foot and mouth disease virus 24 to 96 hours before they show any clinical signs of disease and before foot and mouth disease virus can be isolated from the animals by cell culture (Use of a portable real time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction assay for rapid detection of foot and mouth disease virus, Callahan, J.D. and others, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 220, 1636 - 1642, 2002).
We have also known for over a decade that this real time PCR test can be performed at the site of the potential foot and mouth outbreak using automated PCR analyzers that do not require a laboratory and that scientific experts located anywhere in the world can follow the PCR process as it is actually being performed at the site of the outbreak by logging onto the PCR device via the internet. In recent years advances in device automation have further simplified the PCR test procedure ..."Read email in full

May 5th/6th 2011 ~ New research has "significantly altered scientists' thinking about FMD - "what we thought we knew about foot and mouth disease is not entirely true."

Reuters reports that research published in the journal Science (May 6th) suggests that cattle afflicted with the virus are only infectious for a brief window of time - that a cow with FMD is only infectious for around 1.7 days. Mark Woolhouse, Bryan Charleston and colleagues from Pirbright published the research which is based, says Reuters, on "new kinds of experiments in which they infected "source" cows with the FMD virus and then studied how it was transmitted to other, uninfected cows."
Woolhouse is quoted:
"This study shows that what we thought we knew about foot and mouth disease is not entirely true. We have pinned down, very specifically, the relationship between when the animals are infectious ... and when they show clinical signs of the infection."

May 5/6th 2011 ~ Dr Charleston maintains that the "next challenge" is to develop on-site diagnostic tests for use during an outbreak to detect FMD before clinical signs appear. This is an incomprehensible remark.

As we have been saying for several years now, such on-farm pre-clinical signs diagnostic tests for FMD are already available.
The UK based Smiths Detection Bioseeq^TM machine is a portable, briefcase sized device for on-farm detection of foot and mouth disease returning a result from the sample in about 90 minutes on farm. The study Diagnosis of FMD by RT-PCR: prospects for mobile and portable assays (pdf) funded by DEFRA concluded that such instruments
"provide realistic options for performing molecular assays for FMDV away from centralized laboratories"
but the study then went on to say:
"validation of these and other mobile and portable instruments is required before RT-PCR methodology can reliably be used in the field or closer to suspect premises for FMD outbreak diagnosis and control."
Can anyone explain why "validation" takes so long when what needs to be validated has already been so successfully tried and tested in such studies?
Another example is Tetracore's VetAlert^TM an easy to perform single tube method
".. The assays are optimized for use on multiple platforms including the Cepheid SmartCycler, Roche LightCycler, ABI Prism, BioRad iCycler, Stratagene MX3005P, and Qiagen Rotor-Gene Q...."
See documentation (pdf) .(More)
The UK's apparent reluctance to use available systems - which are not even mentioned in the latest Contingency Plan - is a mystery that we find deeply disturbing. Informed comment would be most gratefully received. (See Friday's email from Dr Breeze)

May 5th 2011 ~ EU farm minister Dacian Ciolos strongly favours traditional agriculture: "GM crops not the panacea for meeting increasing food demands across Europe"

Farmers Weekly reports:
"...He said EU agriculture should not be based on producing cheap foods at whatever cost and consumer demand for quality produce would not be met by GM technology...GM produce risked damaging consumer trust in food produced in the EU....agricultural research should be directed towards developing diversity and quality of conventional produce." Read in full
Mr Ciolos was formerly minister of agriculture and rural development in Romania and became EU agriculture commissioner in February 2010. He has said that his proirities include a "thriving agricultural sector" in order to ensure food security, environmental preservation and protection of the countryside. He has been quoted as saying (here):
"we are not necessarily seeking to make farms bigger, but to develop smaller farms to make them contribute to local food production and create local production circuits".
On GM he feels that both consumers and farmers should be allowed to choose whether they want to purchase or cultivate genetically modified foods, and that Member states' choices should be respected. (The warmwell GM pages are updated as often as possible.)

May 4th 2011 ~ Could the National Trust's "My Farm" project reconnect non farmers with farming?

Ordinary members of the public are being invited to pay an annual subscription of £30 to get involved in the decision making on a real-life organic working farm; the 2500-acre estate at Wimpole in Cambridgeshire. It is hoped that 10,000 people will, via the internet, "take control" of the farm by voting (first past the post system!) every month on decisions. There is a website and members' forum where, the Manager says, "We can talk about everything from the next vote to how the project's going, and issues from GM and organic to food prices."
This is the first project of its kind and may well have been inspired by the extraordinary popularity of the virtual farming game, Farmville. The difference is that this is real life and a farm that needs to remain viable. Participants so far seem to be expressing a real desire to get to grips with the issues involved. MyFarm website FAQs.
Helen Browning said (here) that she is "Massively enthused about any opportunity to involve and engage people about where their food comes from."

May 3rd 2011 ~ How can we ignore the chilling statistics on arable land?

In the the latest copy of the New Statesman, David Attenborough grasps the nettle of population. What he calls the "bizarre taboo around the subject ...doesn't just inhibit politicians and civil servants who attend the big conferences. It even affects the environmental and developmental non-governmental organisations". He urges people to
"..ask why the growth of our population, which affects every department, is as yet no one's responsibility. Big empty Australia has appointed a sustainable population minister, so why can't small crowded Britain? .."
He says that every one of the other environmental problems that now afflict us and our poor battered planet becomes more difficult - and ultimately impossible - to solve with ever more people.
Professor Al Bartlett's talk on the same subject is, if anything, even more chilling. He explains the simple arithmetical function involved in population growth. It has been watched on YouTube two and a half million times (Transcript)
"...think about the definition of modern agriculture: it's "the use of land to convert petroleum into food." And we can see the end of the petroleum..."
That David Attenborough is also prepared to take on this highly politically incorrect but very dangerous taboo is a hopeful sign. We constantly hear the phrase "sustainable growth" but it means nothing unless we can eventually achieve zero growth of the population. Ultimately it is a matter of freedom and dignity. Here Bartlett quotes Isaac Asimov:
"As you put more and more people onto the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies, the more people there are, the less one person matters."

May 2nd 2011 ~ "our current standard of living, or business-as-usual scenario will not be an option no matter what we do.." Nicole Foss

Globalisation brought with it not only a frightening exponential increase in population, dwindling water supplies, global speculation bubbles of such greed and magnitude that food prices have been manipulated out of the reach of millions, but also an insidious spread of pathogens. We remain powerless against some of the exotic diseases while - on mere trade and political grounds - effective vaccination is discouraged. Crises of sovereign debt and the end of cheap energy are likely to see the end of globalisation sooner or later. Disease, shortages, poverty and unrest are not going to disappear with it. We do seem to be facing a very uncertain future.
Fostering and encouraging the traditional farming skill base, (one not dependent on cheap energy), is more and more vital - and yet we have seen successive governments playing with red tape, jumping on unsustainable green bandwagons, and imposing disease controls that are neither humane nor scientific. In the case of foot and mouth, any basis for the crazy EU rules discouraging properly conducted vaccination is simply unsound - and yet we still hear politicians talking about "the best scientific advice". In her balanced and highly informed website (The Automatic Earth) Nicole Foss is one of the very few pundits prepared both to look the energy poor future in the face and question scientific "consensus" as opposed to truth
" Truth and consensus are not necessarily identical, nor even comparable. .. It can be virtually impossible to fund or publish studies conflicting with received wisdom which has hardened into dogma.... All conflicting information is then dismissed as anecdotal."
Essential reading for informed comment (the latest piece is an expert examination of Fukushima, Chernobyl and the nuclear debate) and the global big picture - http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/

May 1st 2011 ~ Equine diseases: "UK is ill-prepared for an outbreak"

This is the conclusion of Roly Owers, the chief executive of World Horse Welfare. It rather echoes the quotation from Nigel Gibbens in the latest Horse and Hound:
"The September outbreaks of EIA showed how we can deal with incidents of the disease, but also that there is a real threat of the disease appearing in the UK."
Mr Gibbens said he was "pleased that work with the new core group of equine stakeholders has very much improved the exchange of information between government and industry. But we can improve further and are now working on this."
Mr Owers will sit on the equine core group.
Professor Josh Slater, Professor in Equine Clinical Studies at the Royal Veterinary College and past president of the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA), is also quoted: "It is easy to think of exotic disease as something that happens somewhere else, but we all have our part to play in the fight against equine diseases." (More on EIA)

April 28th 2011 ~ White-nose syndrome is now killing bats in Europe

Bats, in addition to their rarely recognised work as pollinators, are perhaps the best insect control we have. White-nose syndrome (WNS) has killed over 1 million bats in nine states of the United States. Since 2006 when the disease was first identified, numbers have declined by 80-100% in some US hibernation sites . All six resident bat species have been affected - and the disease is spreading.
Although no mass deaths have been seen in Europe yet, the fungus asociated with WNS, Geomyces destructans, has been identifed on a number of bats in Europe: in France, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. As the US expert, Thomas Kunz, professor of biology and director for the Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology at Boston University, explains (here) it takes a couple of years for it to build up sufficiently enough to start causing massive mortality. "It would be professionally irresponsible to take no action to stop or slow this disease," he says. The UK Bat Conservation Trust is well aware of the danger - both to the bats themselves and to agriculture.

April 27th 2011 ~Temple Grandin: 'Improving Animal Welfare- A Practical Approach'

Thanks to the highly successful film, starring Clare Danes, Temple Grandin is now well known for her remarkable gift for making humane innovations for cattle handling and slaughter. She wanted every moment of their lives to be calm. We are pleased to see that she is giving a public lecture in Bristol at the Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law Veterinary Association's (AWSELVA) conference, on the 23rd June. See pdf for details

April 26th 2011 ~ Responsibility and Cost Sharing - the Animal Health and Welfare Board for England - operating within DEFRA itself - yet a "completely new way of working" says Jim Paice

Mr Paice is quoted on the DEFRA website today claiming that the new Board ".. replaces the old ways, where the people most affected by decisions were kept at arm's length from policymaking on those subjects." This may be wishful thinking. Gone are the plans for a non-departmental public body or arms-length body. The new Board will form part of the internal structure of DEFRA. Five senior DEFRA officials - including the chief veterinary officer - will be on the board, joined by "up to eight external members" including a chairman. Board members who are "external" will be "required to have knowledge and experience of kept and farmed animals".
Page 6 of the final Responsibility and Cost Sharing for Animal Health and Welfare report in December issues a warning:
"....Unless the right people join the Board, people whom the animal keepers and other stakeholders trust and respect, it will not work. And the communication channels up and down to and from the Board have to be excellent: if they are not, the initiative will fail. It will require changes to the way everyone works: Ministers; civil servants; animal keepers and their representative organisations; vets; other stakeholders alike. "
(See background to all this on the Responsibillity and Cost Sharing pages.)

April 26th 2011 ~ "This is about the Big Society...."

Mr Paice is claiming that the new Board is the same sort of "partnership" as that which, he opines, made possible the near eradication of Bluetongue. He forgets perhaps that French farmers were obliged to vaccinate against both the BTV8 and BTV1 strains until 2011, thus helping to keep their Anglo Saxon neighbours across the Channel free of disease - whereas England's voluntary vaccine take-up never got above about 60% for BTV8 - and that only in areas where many farmers felt deeply concerned. In fact millions of DEFRA's doses of vaccine were wasted because of the poor voluntary uptake when farmers who felt unaffected were chary at the the prices being charged. Pre-emptive vaccination against BTV1 never took place at all.
(The Compensation Arrangements Chart at the end of the report makes clear that while animals slaughtered for any future outbreak of Bluetongue will be paid for at market value only if found to be diseased, for foot and mouth, animals that are healthy and slaughtered will be "compensated" at market price. Can this arrangement bode well for a smoother emergency vaccination policy in the event of FMD? Will the external members of this new board "whom the animal keepers and other stakeholders trust and respect" as the report puts it, be able to explain to DEFRA just how insane it is to wait until any FMD virus gets established enough to threaten large numbers of animals before making a vaccination ring round it and closing in and stopping the virus in its tracks?)

April 26th 2011 ~ The BVA reaction to the new Animal Health and Welfare Board for England

Harvey Locke, President of the British Veterinary Association (BVA), said: "The BVA is delighted that both the Advisory Group and Ministers have taken note of the veterinary professions views in drawing up these plans. We said from the outset that genuine responsibility sharing has to be achieved before cost sharing can be discussed and we warned against earlier plans to separate animal health policy from animal welfare policy, as the two are intrinsically linked.
Animal health and welfare policy issues require expert, scientific input and it will be essential that the new Board includes veterinary representation. We believe that the Board will provide the right mechanism for ensuring decisions are based on sound science.
The new Board will also have to work closely with the three devolved administrations to ensure that animal health and welfare policies across the UK are joined up and complementary." Text of the full press relaease.

April 26th 2011 ~ NFU reaction to the new Animal Health and Welfare Board for England

Peter Kendall (via www.farminguk.com): "The NFU had long-called for more industry participation in Defra policy on animal health and welfare issues.
We expressed some reservations about the recommendations in the independent review of Responsibility and Cost Sharing, which was carried out by an advisory group chaired by Rosemary Radcliffe.
Today's announcement goes some way to addressing those concerns. We see members of the board will be made up of seven or eight external people, giving farmers and other animal health experts, chance to ensure industry views are not only heard but included in future policy-making.
I believe that the success of this new venture will depend greatly on the quality of those individuals appointed to the board and how well the board then engages with industry.
The NFU has committed to working with Defra to ensure the appropriate structures are put in place to enable the board to engage properly with industry and to take account of - and act on - its views.
We will continue to hold government to account on animal health and welfare issues and in particular how the budget is funded."

April 25th 2011 ~ Bulgaria FMD continues. ProMed concerned about the "vaccination" applied in Thrace

We learn from www.novinite.com that Turkish and Bulgarian authorities seem to be holding each other responsible for the risk of continuing spread of FMD along the border. ProMed points to the questions arising from the promised provision of 850,000 vaccine doses from the EC. "The current decision to (re?)vaccinate is in need of explanation." :
"Turkish Thrace (including Kirklareli) is officially/internationally recognised as an "FMD-free zone with vaccination," all susceptible animals there are expected to have been properly vaccinated (and hence protected). ... Has the vaccine's quality (or certain batches thereof) been put in doubt? Is a single annual vaccination of small ruminants conferring protection for the entire year? Was the timing of their vaccination (spring) optimal? ...... For a single vaccination of all cattle in Thrace, 1.3 million monovalent vaccine doses are required.
Is the vaccine intended for one round of (booster) vaccination of the large and small ruminants in one district, namely Kirlareli? - Mod.AS"]
Read in full at ProMed. As ProMed says, "properly vaccinated" animals are protected from FMD - but if vaccination was incorrectly carried out in Thrace, the presence of FMD in the area may be more readily explained.

April 21st 2011 ~ Another DEFRA Contingency Plan. Another consultation. We have until May 13th

DEFRA has, by EU regulation, to produce a new plan each year. From the Consultation page:
"... It is hoped that the simplified document provides a clear overview of our response to an outbreak of animal disease. Please note that the draft Plan also reflects the fact that Animal Health and the Veterinary Laboratories Agency will be merging on 1 April 2011."
Please do consider responding. One pleasing aspect of the plan is that the risk of FMD being transmitted by human vector (as it certainly was in previous crises, on clothing and in respiratory passages) is acknowledged on page 67 para 10.21. However the UK's attitude to FMD vaccination in the current Plan is still based on the outdated EU discrimination against FMD vaccination. This results in the ludicrous situation in which the decision to vaccinate still depends on a political rather than veterinary decision.

April 21st 2011 ~ Diagnostic testing will, during an "amber" or "red" alert, simply precede slaughter and samples carried all the way to Pirbright (or Weybridge if Pirbright cannot cope).

That samples can now be rapidly tested on-site or in mobile laboratories is not mentioned at all in the Plan - yet must surely be to the fore in any effective, modern plan for foot and mouth.
In spite of claims about how Silver Birch (see evaluation pdf) taught DEFRA lessons, the Contingency Plan seems pretty much the "mixture as before". For the sake of our farmers, herds and flocks, a radical and informed rethink is more than ten years overdue. Information about any future FMD outbreak really should not have to be searched for in a dense document of 80 pages. Clear and readable instructions should be available to those most affected by FMD ( i.e. mostly those not directly invited by letter to take part in the Consultation) about the things that matter to them in an outbreak: protection of their animals, the rights of owners of susceptible animals, reassurance about the abilities of anyone coming onto the farm to handle farm animals in a skilled and humane manner, the responsibility of officials in giving fast, accurate information about actions taken - and clearly thought-out arrangements for the sale of meat and milk post vaccination.
Above all, in a global situation of constant threat from the incursion of the FMD virus, Member States should be questioning the discrimination against vaccination that allows farmers and animals to pay so heavily for the protection of the EU's trade considerations - as we are seeing so tragically in Bulgaria. One hopes that consultees will mention this. (Defra consultation page.)

April 21st 2011 ~ Bulgaria, ignoring vaccination, is to fight FMD with a new barbed wire fence

Bulgaria's border with Thrace area of Turkey which, during the Cold War, was one of the most-heavily fortified in Europe, has not been secure since the 1990s. The present Bulgarian outbreak seems closely related to the Turkish 2010 FMD virus-serotype O strain. After much dithering, the Bulgarian Ministry now seems to have made a decision about reinstating the fence. The phrase "shutting the stable door" comes unbidden to the mind. See also www.emg.rs

April 21st 2011 ~ South Korea finds FMD in piglets a week after downgrading the alert level from orange to yellow

According to yonhapnews.co.kr a fresh case of FMD is raising questions about the vaccination that had been said to be nationwide - and also the possibility that the FMD virus might have mutated. We watch ProMed for comment.

April 19th 2011 ~ Human barren battery cage - Trafalgar Square

As CIWF reports, although the barren battery cage is due to be outlawed across the EU on 1st January 2012, even now the ban is under threat. To raise awareness of this, four human-sized barren battery cages, each with five red headed women inside to symbolise the plight of battery hens, appeared in Trafalgar Square today. Members of the public were invited to join the "battery cage experience" by spending 10 minutes crammed with four other people inside a cage. The "hens" wrote about their experience from the cages on Twitter.
Bill Oddie, who supports the The Big Move campaign:
."It is horrendous that hens are confined in barren battery cages. EU countries have had up to 12 years to prepare but some countries are wavering. If a decision is now undermined it will be truly outrageous. The ban must go ahead."
More detail at www.smallholder.co.uk/news
(Rescued hens quickly recover joie de vivre in freedom. Mrs Brown, our latest rescued hen, now lays a large egg every day and gives a cheerful morning cluck when she sees us. To know that so many fellows of this charming creature continue to be horribly confined is painful. )

April 19th 2011 ~ Worse and worse for Bulgaria as "police sharpshooters in the Bulgarian Strandzha region" prepare to shoot roaming, starving animals

In spite of there having been no fresh outbreaks reported, we read at www.novinite.com that police marksmen are intending to shoot to kill what are described by the paper as
"infected (sic) domestic animals, roaming around without known owners"
One hopes that ProMed will question the assertion that roaming animals are necessarily "infected" with foot and mouth disease (animals are roaming because farmers have run out of feed (see below) and don't want them to starve, thanks to the administrative blunder the Bulgarian Ministry created earlier with regard to compensation and their lunatic non-vaccination policy.) As our German correspondent says, "Makes one weep.." Yes it does - and all this is so drearily reminiscent of scenes ten years ago in Britain (one example here) when appropriately administered high potency vaccination would have made such violence absurd.

April 19th 2011 ~ Bulgaria's foot and mouth - In the Strandja region, animals are dying of starvation

In a grim echo of 2001 when farmers in Devon were not allowed to move animals that were in distress from lack of grazing and fodder, the situation in the affected parts of Bulgaria is now so bad that Bulgarian television channel bTV reported on April 18th that animals are simply dying - not of FMD but for lack of food. Because farmers are not allowed to release their animals to graze freely they are supposed to buy feed for the livestock - but excessive demand and lack of grain has led to animals starving.
Farmers are becoming disillusioned with contradictory statements from the Bulgarian Ministry. First they were promised compensation for the animals killed as a result of the non vaccination policy - now, it seems, payments will be made only to farmers who "registered" - and even then the compensation could not exceed 7500 euros over three years. According to the Sofia Echo farmers have written to Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for international co-operation, humanitarian aid and crisis response, and asked to be provided with "real assistance". Read in full.

April 18th 2011 ~ Take action against giant indoor pig production in the UK

The Soil Association says,
"We are facing a crucial point in the future of British farming, and developments like Foston could start a process that will change the face of British farming forever. We only have until May 13th to respond to the planning application so please make your voice heard. "
The Soil Association objected to the local council (South Derbyshire) about plans for an intensive pig unit in Foston, Derbyshire - but the plans have been resubmitted. The facility would keep 2,500 sows and around 20,000 piglets at any one time with approximately 1000 pigs leaving the farm for slaughter each week never having been outside.
If you share our deep repugnance for such a scheme, please do not delay in registering your objections. The Soil Association's key points - particularly on human and animal health grounds - can be seen here and making an objection to the planning application does not take more than a couple of minutes here at www.derbyshire.gov.uk.

April 17th 2011 ~ South Korea An additional outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease

The disease was reported in a pig farm in Yeongcheon, North Gyeongsang Province on Saturday where pigs have tested positive. The six infected pigs were killed and control measures taken to limit access to the farm. It was only last week that the country said FMD had practically come to an end, and the alert level lowered from "orange" to "yellow" when the last case was thought to have been in Hongseong, South Chungcheong Province, on March 21. See article in xinhuanet.com

April 17th 2011 ~ Penside testing: "the diagnostic specificity of the LFD was approximately 99% compared to 100% for the ELISA"

- yet DEFRA, it seems (from the evidence of this letter) will not allow any reliance to be placed on the lateral flow device (1F10) unless there is "clear and unequivocal" visual evidence of FMD already in visible lesions "in the mouth or feet". In other words, the device will be used only when an animal can be confirmed positive without using it. Sic.
A decade on from our worst ever experience of the disease, and can "better dead than suspect" really still be the mindset? The UK Contingency Plan for foot and mouth still fails to mention the use of rapid diagnosis at the site of any suspect case.
Yet as this PowerPoint pdf from the /www.fao.org makes clear:
"The requirement for a specific, simple, cheap, disposable and rapid test to be made available to veterinarians to support clinical diagnosis of FMD has been met through the development and validation of the 1F10 lateral flow device"
Acknowledgement is made for "Financial support from DEFRA under projects SE1120, SE1123" so one wonders why DEFRA itself appears to be unaware of the high diagnostic sensitivity and diagnostic specificity of the device.

April 16th 2011 ~ "The bottom line is still, that if the CVO wanted to embrace vaccination to live using DIVA vaccines, he would have noticed these fundamental stumbling blocks.."

A very interesting email from a farmer who has tried very hard to help DEFRA in those stakeholder meetings that have seen the light of day:
".... the argument that vaccinated stock will be deemed unfit for export (and may well be deemed regionally unacceptable or undesirable within the UK) will undoubtedly impact on subsequent non-slaughter prices - the so-called 'two-tier' market.
Yes, this is based on fear of carriers.
No, the Government do not seem minded to compensate for loss of value arising from this, so this is a hurdle...."
Read in full

April 16th 2011 ~ "...the risks posed by vaccinated carriers must be an acceptable, "close to zero" risk. ..."

The international FMD expert in the field, the Dutch expert in FMD vaccines, Dr Simon Barteling, writes here suggesting that EU export rules be adapted according to the severity of foot and mouth outbreaks and according to the number of vaccinated cattle surviving at 3 months after the last FMD case. He concedes that a sticking point for vaccination is thought to be if large numbers of vaccinated cattle need the surveillance and testing required by the Directive at the end of an outbreak - but suggests that trade consequences for both slaughter and vaccination to live should be identical as long as vaccination is applied very quickly to isolate and contain the virus:
"... if the number of vaccinated cattle (and small ruminants?) surviving at 3 months is limited e.g. less than 100,000 (and holdings have been screened for carriers)....
...In a country where there is high awareness, one will detect the FMD at an early stage and one will rapidly take action. The number of cattle to be vaccinated - and to be screened - will remain relatively low.
Milk can be sterilized by UHT-treatment. Would it make sense if during the 3-4 months waiting period slaughter of vaccinated animals is forbidden? During that period there will be a ban on transport of animals anyhow. Then, after that period everything can go back to normal."
He emphasises again that where outbreaks have been controlled by consistent vaccination with a correctly applied high potency vaccine the disease has not re-occurred. Indeed there are no documented cases where cattle, vaccinated with a qualified vaccine, have caused new outbreaks. Therefore, the risks posed by vaccinated carriers must be an acceptable, "close to zero" risk. Read in full. Informed comments sent by email to the warmwell.com website will be passed on.

April 12th 2011 ~ "I firmly believe that if you give farmers the tools and correct opportunities they can manage and control disease." (as long as it's Bluetongue rather than FMD?)

A European Parliament vote last Thursday means Member States whose current Bluetongue status is "Low Risk Zone" will be able to qualify for "disease-free status" while still retaining their ability to vaccinate against that disease. NFU livestock board chairman, Alistair Mackintosh, calls this "a win-win for the industry" and says,
"The only way to protect UK cattle and sheep from this disease is through vaccination."
If DEFRA and the NFU office in Brussels have helped bring about the change (which still has to be ratified by EU Council in May), one wonders how there can still be any reason not to do the same for foot-and-mouth disease. Ironically, the NFU appears unconcerned about the continuing lack of movement on the EU's two-tier FMD rules - but on the subject of Bluetongue, Mr Mackintosh concluded:
"I firmly believe that if you give farmers the tools and correct opportunities they can manage and control disease."
(One wonders how far he, and others like him, are aware of the proven success and safety of modern FMD vaccines compared to those for Bluetongue.)

April 12th 2011 ~ The thaw in Korea raises further concerns about polluted ground water from buried animals

Public opinion is illustrated in www.businessweek.com by the words of Lyu Soon Ha, a 63-year-old grandmother who is buying bottled water from remote Jeju Island because she fears supplies from the mainland could be contaminated:
"Health has to come before everything else regardless of the expense. I want to give my grandchildren good water when they come to visit."
It seems that Evian and Volvic sales may increase as much as 20% by value in South Korea this year, partly on growing fears about water quality. Some mass graves were dug near rivers and on mountain slopes, and often lined with unsealed vinyl, and, as we remember with horror, in the most sickening case, thousands of pigs were simply buried alive.
Vaccination was applied far too late to prevent such human, financial and animal welfare costs.
As Professor Crispin and Toby Tennant say in their letter below,
"Surely no-one who cares about the livestock they keep, not all of which are destined for the food chain, would wish ever again to see millions of animals, so many of which were uninfected, killed as a means of controlling a virus?"
Yet, astonishingly, the issue of vaccination remains contentious owing to the fact that the EU's two-tier regulations remain stubbornly in place.

April 10th 2011 ~ "The time to discuss vaccines is now!" Professor Sheila Crispin and Toby Tennant

A letter last week in the Scottish Farmer referred to the comments made at the FMD Moredun Conference by DCV Alick Simmons, who - as many readers will remember - was heavily involved in the disastrous policy of contiguous culling in 2001. Since the original TSF article makes it clear that the conference concluded that contiguous culling has no place in future policies, the headline "Vaccine Doubts", seems an unfortunate choice. The article quotes Mr Simmons' "doubts" - which seem to consist of the worry that "by the time vets and scientists have collated enough data to make a decision, it will probably be too late. The judgement will need to be made, and political courage taken, before all the facts are known." The letter to the paper by Professor Crispin and Mr Tennant applauds the organisers of the conference "for their courage in addressing the issue of vaccination to live now, rather than when we have the next incursion of FMD.":
"... it was the success of prophylactic vaccination in Europe that allowed us to obtain the much valued 'foot and mouth-free status without vaccination' at a time when foot and mouth disease (FMD) vaccines were nothing like as effective as they are now.....
It is perfectly possible to vaccinate effectively in the face of an epidemic, but it is usually better to start emergency vaccination before an outbreak becomes an epidemic..."
The letter should be read in full

April 8th 2011 ~ Scotland leads the way - again

The conference at the Moredun Institute on FMD (see March 15th) made it clear that Scotland, at least, is determined "to make improvements and avoid the tragedy of 2001" and sees, in the words of Nigel Miller, "a real opportunity to build these innovations and flexibilities into our future contingency planning"
We now see news that Scotland's Agricultural College (SAC), in collaboration with the universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, the Roslin Institute, the Moredun Institute and James Hutton Research Institute, is to start work on a new Centre of Expertise to provide evidence-based advice for the Scottish Government on controlling livestock disease outbreaks. These will include Foot and Mouth Disease, Avian Influenza, Classical Swine Fever and African Swine Fever. (More from Vetsweb)
The Centre of true expertise could bring to an end the mindset, encouraged infortunately by the EU Directive, that vaccination is some sort of desperate last gasp remedy to be applied with extreme reluctance when all else fails - as South Korea did? Together with movement standstill, immediate vaccination will bring the spread of disease to a halt. Even if a few animals are vaccinated after infection, they will not pose a threat within their group, and they can be identified with the DIVA strategy. Getting a grip on disease control before the drama becomes a crisis, is a lesson that Bulgaria too has failed to learn from the sad lessons of the UK, Japan and Korea.

April 8th 2011 ~ Southeast Bulgaria - yet another discovery of FMD leading to the slaughter of hundreds more domestic animals - and no vaccination.

The latest FMD was found yesterday in the village of Dolno Yabalkovo, Sredets Municipality east of most of the previous cases and 4.5-km away from Bulgaria's border with Thrace. Still no vaccination as farmers see their livelihoods and their animals destroyed. A total of 325 goats and sheep and 45 cows and buffaloes owned "will be put to death and their corpses buried in the village," says the newspaper www.novinite.com " in order to contain the spread of FMD" One wonders when it will be that someone with clout in Bulgaria will point out that none of this is necessary. As Nigel Miller said last month at the conference in Scotland, the use of emergency vaccination to live should be accepted as a key part of future strategy.
What utter lunacy it is that the only thing discouraging Member States to make use of the excellent vaccines that exist is the outdated and scientifically unsound EU discrimination against it, putting the trade of the few before the health and welfare of the many.

April 7th 2011 ~ £10,000 bonus is not 'big bucks' says Dame "Austerity" Ghosh. But the £32,000 claimed by Elliot Morley returned to haunt him today

Still exactly as impressive as she was as Permanent Secretary at DEFRA now that she is at the Home Office, Dame Helen Ghosh has been quoted widely for her remark. Presumably embarrassed at its powerlessness in the face of the bankers' bonuses, (gained when they take ever bigger but securitised "risks" with money that is not their own), the government says it is trying to curb excessive pay in the public sector. When the Home Affairs Select Committee asked Mrs Ghosh on Tuesday about the Home Office's intention to pay the prospective successor to Lin Homer a possible bonus of up to £17,000 if certain performance targets were met, she replied that the job had to be made "attractive" to people in the "top echelons" of the public and private sector as well as those already working in government.
"The average wasn't exactly big bucks. The average was, I think, the very maximum for the highest earners was £10,000."
One is left wondering. Perhaps the top echelons "already working in government" feel that they are so very much more exalted than those of us who are looking aghast at what is collapsing around us, that "big bucks" is exactly what they deserve. Evidently this was the assumption made by Elliot Morley, the former DEFRA Minister who presided over the 2001 foot and mouth disaster. However, his £32,000 in "parliamentary expenses" has done him no good at all. In Southwark Crown court today, he finally pleaded guilty to dishonestly claiming the money.

April 6th 2011 ~ Livestock emissions - the amount regularly quoted was criticised by the European Commission last week

As we said in May last year, the FAO Livestock's Long Shadow report, published in 2006, made some erroneous claims. The later FAO release, (January 2010) "Fighting climate change with grasslands" pointed out that pastureland for livestock can "represent a carbon sink that could be greater than forests if properly managed."
FWi today says, "...A review of the FAO report is due out later this year which could suggest that beef production, is more reasonably responsible for around 3% of greenhouse gas emissions."

April 5th 2011 ~ Fifth case in Bulgaria highlights the idiocy of non-vaccination. Hundreds more animals to be killed

As ever with a non-vaccination policy, it is not foot and mouth disease itself that kills animals but the measures taken to protect trade rather than farmers and their animals. And, as always with a pre-emptive slaughter policy, it is not those who impose or delay the non-vaccination policy who consider at first hand the suffering involved.
FMD has now been discovered among domestic animals in the village of Bliznak, in Bulgaria's Malko Tarnovo Municipality. Read in full.

March 31st 2011 ~ Bulgaria. Hundreds of farmers say they would rather die than have their animals destroyed

As we report below, thousands of farm animals in the Strandzha region were to be culled in SE Bulgaria near the border with Thrace - but a protest by stock-breeders is holding this up. They say they want a vaccination campaign, an adequate fence between Thrace and Bulgaria, reasonable financial compensation for losses - and that they will risk their own lives to save their animals. They accuse the Government of incompetence.
The Sofia Echo reports that the stockbreeders have sent a letter to Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for international co-operation, humanitarian aid and crisis response, asking for assistance;
"....furthermore, they demanded to know why the Government was hesitating and refusing to build a fence along the Turkish border after the first FMD outbreak in January
After the January outbreak, Bulgarian authorities deliberated and hesitated about the fence project, while the authorities in Turkey were staunchly opposed to it, saying there was "no FMD" in their country, and the fence simply served as a division between Christianity and Islam. But Bulgarian officials disagreed, saying there were more than 1000 confirmed sites of FMD in Turkey.... This time the Bulgarian Government decision (on the provision of a fence) But treportedly is a "firm one" having admitted that "it was taken too late" but as far as the farmers in the region are concerned, it is better late than never."
One must hope that the new Animal Health Law (pdf), to be proposed in March 2012 will reveal a changed mindset on FMD vaccination. While FMD vaccination has proved so effective to animals and risk free for human health, it is time to end discrimination against its use. The Directive itself (page 3 para 24) admits that "too much importance was attached to the trade-policy aspects" in 2001.

March 31st 2011 ~ Massive water pollution detected near livestock burial sites [S. Korea]

As we read at english.yonhapnews.co.kr concern has been raised in Seoul over the widespread environmental pollution. About 3,000 underground water sources within a 300-meter radius of animal burial sites across South Korea have been examined.
"143 sources showed high rates of bacteriological contamination beyond water quality standards set by the environment authority."
South Korea has spent about £1.6 billion over the past four months in efforts to rid itself of FMD. The first case was confirmed in late November and the government slaughtered 3.4 million livestock.
Finally it was acknowledged that only vaccination could bring the crisis to an end (see below) However, the burial of so many animal corpses appears to have left the country with dangerously contaminated water, presumed to be polluted by leachate from the burial sites.

March 29th 2011 ~ FMD Bulgaria "..from large farms which employ up to 30 individuals, to families who own one or two cows.. This is a tragedy,"

Almost the entire population of Momina Tsurkva village will be affected if the animals are slaughtered. Villagers had been promised by Agriculture Minister, Miroslav Naidenov, that "it would be cheaper for us to build a fence and protect our farmers that way, rather than having to pay them compensation for the animals".
When Bulgaria's no-vaccination gamble seemed to have paid off, the decision to build the fence with the Thrace region of Turkey, where FMD is endemic, was shelved.
" ...no fence is being built, and no other measures are being taken to protect the stockbreeders...their owners fear that they will not be compensated properly... "They are trying to destroy our living. This is a tragedy," ..." Read in full at www.sofiaecho.com
The FMD being found but not yet officially confirmed in several villages in the Burgas area is resulting in mass killing of all village animals. No one has denied in the past few years that properly administered modern vaccines effectively stop the virus in its tracks. A change of policy is desperately needed, not only in Bulgaria but in the EU as a whole. (The fact that vaccination is not even mentioned by DEFRA in letters to concerned UK farmers about current FMD measures is surely outrageous.)

March 28th 2011 ~ Heartbreaking reminders of 2001 as 300 Bulgarian farmers try to stop the killing of their flocks and herds and ask for FMD vaccination instead

About 300 Bulgarian farmers from the Strandzha Mountain region formed a human chain yesterday to stop vets from killing their cattle and sheep.
They failed.
The farmers demanded vaccines against FMD. See www.novinite.com Scenes like this are desperately sad. Timely vaccination would have made such slaughter unnecessary. This misery cannot be blamed on the virus but rather on the insane rules that make gambling with disease in order to protect EU trade favourable to vaccinating animals against the virus. See also the report at www.sofiaecho.com

March 27th 2011 ~ Vaccine gave the vaccinated livestock "satisfactory protection"

The senior ProMed moderator's words from March 25th on the subject of FMD in North and South Korea and vaccine are worth reading carefully:
".... The vaccine eventually applied in South Korea seems to have rendered the vaccinated livestock satisfactory protection.
The handling of the DPR Korea (North Korea) FMD epizootic by FAO and OIE may serve as a timely test-case for the ability of the international community to attend to such events in a satisfactory manner during the shortly expected post-rinderpest era."
i.e. Rinderpest is being successfully conquered with the use of vaccination. South Korea's belated decision to use FMD vaccination "eventually" gave protection to its livestock. North Korea needs the urgent help of international cooperation. Vaccination gives protection.

March 27th 2011 ~ Bulgarian villagers want "an all-out vaccination campaign"

The villagers are protesting today against the imminent slaughter of their 7000 animals. Latest news from www.novinite.com
"...Locals are calling a rally 9.30 am Saturday at the veterinary unit near the village of Fakia. The villagers argue that the massive killing of animals will leave them without one of their central sources of livelihood. They also fear that after what has happened people will not be motivated to restore their herds and the already sparsely-populated Strandzha region will be still further depopulated. ...."
Read in full

March 26th 2011 ~ Yet more FMD discovered in three villages in SE Bulgaria

It was announced today that "there are flares of the disease in the villages of Goliamo Bukovo, Fakia and Momina Tsarkva near the town of Sredets. Over 350 animals in the three villages will have to be killed." See www.novinite.com
As South Korea found to its great cost, the gamble of not using vaccination in order to protect trade for a handful of extra weeks is a very risky one. It is people and animals who pay the price of outdated EU trade rules - and the waste is outrageous. It is to be hoped that Bulgaria will now opt for the effective protection that FMD vaccination gives. The situation ought now to be sending an important message to Member States. FMD vaccination in the EU should enjoy the same status as that considered so important for Bluetongue - and the protectionism of the current rules urgently reassessed.

March 26th 2011 ~ Current EU legislation allows for live animals to be transported for several days. This has to be changed.

Live animals for slaughter should never be transported for more than eight hours, says Compassion in World Farming (CIWF). Their aim is to collect 1,000,000 signatures for this petition, "something EU politicians will not be able to ignore." Please do consider signing it.

March 24th 2011 ~ Bulgaria's second new outbreak of FMD

The new outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease has been found in the village of Granichar, again in the Burgas district. Routine checks were being made of all 130 animals in the village. They will now all be killed. The European Commission had been expected to lift the measures on March 21st because of Bulgaria's non vaccination policy. There are more than 1000 FMD outbreaks in Turkey. See news report from www.novinite.com
One wonders when it is going to occur to those with the power to change things that it is only the EU regulations that are preventing humane and modern measures to put a stop to the carnage of EU "FMD free without vaccination" policies.

March 24th 2011 ~ "Lesson Identified 23 - GB Administrations should develop their strategy for the on-farm use of portable diagnostic equipment." Silver Birch Report

How is it possible that ten years on from the most appallingly handled foot and mouth crisis in Britain, DEFRA is still without the tools to make a swift diagnosis for FMD until clinical signs are visible and the virus moving in all directions?
The Report on the Silver Birch Exercise is now available. Section 16.7.1 is specifically concerned with vaccination; 16.7.3 is headed "Deployment of Penside Tests Section" But "penside tests" as they stand are of very limited use since - as the report says - they
" can only be relied upon in certain circumstances, for example, when there is clear and unequivocal evidence of lesions in the mouth or feet."
Once again, there is no mention of the rapid diagnositic technology that has been available for at least ten years, was succsssfully used in Uruguay in 2001 and has been deployed in the former Soviet Union for several years now. FMD can be detcted several days before any clinical signs appear. Bulgaria did not eradicate its FMD and it seems to be in roaming wildlife. (Yet another outbreak in Bulgaria was found today). This is surely too close for comfort. Communications from Roger Breeze are relevant here. It is frankly heartbreaking to witness delay after delay as no one in a position to do so will take responsibility for getting the newest equipment into the Contingency Plan - and ready for use.

March 23 2011 ~ "The old NFU line about 'the public not eating (FMD) vaccinated meat' is now generally accepted for the dinosaur it was..."

All the same, an email from the livestock farmer and DEFRA stakeholder, Chris Stockdale, reminds us that unless rules are changed or unless the UK comes up with practical solutions for farmers, there are still issues about how meat from FMD vaccinated animals can be profitably used.
"In the summer of 2005 I attended a burst of DEFRA meetings attempting to crack this issue, a series terminated by the appointment of Debby Reynolds and her introductory Stakeholder meeting, which actually had the effect of bringing this process to a halt - a process which we now badly need to resume..." Read email in full.
As Chris says, "We need to urgently reconvene a working group to help progress these issues."

March 22nd 2011 ~ Bulgaria did not use vaccination. Now it has a new outbreak

On March 1st, the European Commission decided to reduce the areas under FMD restriction in Bulgaria. In order to retain its "FMD without vaccination" status, Bulgaria chose to slaughter all animals near infection rather than use vaccination. On Saturday, 143 cows tested positive for foot-and-mouth disease. ProMed quotes from the news item at www.focus-fen.net which says, "The infection most probably spread from wild animals."
The ProMed moderator comments: "If the farm is isolated, surrounded by forest, and the disease is a week old, it is very persuasive that it might be as a result of nearby wildlife being infected... ." adding that the farm is "very close to the Turkish border" . The OIE (Wahis) page says, "The event is continuing. Weekly follow-up reports will be submitted." (Without the protection of vaccination, and if roaming wildlife is infected, the disease is indeed likely to be "continuing")

March 22nd 2011 ~ "the panel does not include one single representative of those who campaigned against the government's plans."

On January 31st this year, John Humphrys interviewed Caroline Spelman about the proposed sell off of woodland during which her assertion about a "conflict of interest" in the Forestry Commission was ridiculed (and subsequently abandoned.)
"You're going to have to back down on this, aren't you, Caroline"
said John Humphrys. But DEFRA's Minister replied
"No. There's a Consultation there and I would urge everybody to get involved."
No consultation was needed for over half a million people to sign a petition, energetic campaigners to organise the excellent website http://saveourwoods.co.uk/and opinion polls to show that the public - 84% of them - want forests to remain in public hands. The consultation itself was abandoned. However, as we learn from Lord David Clark in the Guardian today, the "independent panel" promised doesn't include one single representative of those who campaigned to keep forests in public ownership. Alarming too is that the terms of reference include looking at options for their "future ownership and management".
At least the Bishop of Liverpool, chairing the panel,says it should "...meet with the grassroots campaigners who recently showed how much they valued their local woodlands".

March 21 2011 ~ "...We must learn to put aside deep-seated prejudice and embrace vaccination. It fully deserves to be regarded as a method of first use, not of last resort.."

Alan Beat, the Smallholding expert, has written about foot and mouth disease and Bluetongue in this article "Controlling Disease" published in Country Smallholding magazine. In addition to chronicling the progress of Bluetongue control in the EU, it also points out how this put to shame distorted perceptions about vaccination, particularly with reference to foot and mouth disease. Vaccination against Bluetongue in Europe demonstrated how the status of 'disease free without vaccination' is an entirely artificial construct.
"Despite the fast-track deployment of an unproven vaccine; despite the relative inefficiency of bluetongue vaccine which confers immunity for only one year; despite wide differences of implementation between neighbouring states; despite countless animals remaining unvaccinated; despite the continued movement of infected animals into disease-free regions; in fact, despite every obstacle placed in its path, vaccination nevertheless succeeded in spectacular fashion by rapidly containing and then eliminating the disease." Read article(pdf)
Indeed, as we say on the Bluetongue page, the fact that French farmers, for example, vaccinated all their susceptible animals certainly gave protection to those across the Channel. In England, only those far sighted farmers who believed in vaccination bothered to vaccinate; (this this did not stop DEFRA from claiming victory for its own piecemeal "voluntary"campaign).

March 20th 2011 ~ Wrexham's "humane destruction" of strayed cows to "protect them from further suffering", has provoked anger and has been criticised by Susan Elan Jones MP.

" I am very keen to establish exactly what happened here"
Clwyd South MP Susan Elan Jones has written to the Wrexham Council expressing her concern, telling the Express:
"I find it hard to understand why the cows could not have been rounded up and returned to their farms, instead of shot, especially in the full view of the public.
I understand residents were given no advance warning of the shooting and I am very keen to establish exactly what happened here. We must ensure that lessons are learned from this and that any future incidents will be handled in a more sensitive and proportionate way."
Andy Lewis, the council's chief housing and public protection officer, is quoted giving much the same extraordinary reasons as we have heard already: "The decision on the location and timing of the cull was agreed following risk assessment and in the interest of public safety." But this is surely absurd. Most would agree that any officer of "Animal Health" would have a duty of care for the health of strayed animals. One wonders too how "risk assessment" and concern for the interest of public safety can condone the use of guns in close proximity to people and property.
As one concerned vet has written to warmwell: "We have all had experience of these unco-operative and very difficult clients, but it is in just these cases we need to stay strictly within the law." (See also posting of March 15th)

March 19th 2011 ~ "...helping the pets in Japan is to help people."

We read that news crew from Fuji TV saw a couple of dogs this week, lying in the wreckage of Mito, Japan.
"...Then they understood: the dog was sticking by his friend, and asking for help....They were rescued, and are in a veterinary clinic in the Ibaraki Prefecture. (More)"
As the writer points out "...helping the pets in Japan is to help people. All of us who are animal lovers can relate to what it would feel like to be reunited with a pet after a disaster."
Animal Refuge Kansai (ARK) is preparing for what might be a huge influx of animals. (One may donate via Paypal to ARK, which is a non-profit, non-governmental private organization - see website)

March 16th 2011 ~ More from the Scotland conference: "future contingency plans should incorporate emergency protective barrier or ring vaccination"

The Press and Journal quotes the farmer Mr Robin Spence, whose heartfelt words apparently silenced the audience:
"We have a duty to make sure and do our utmost to prevent this coming back and be better armed to deal with it. I'm in no doubt it will come back. It's a question of when, not if."
Its report begins with the cost to the UK - "£3.03billion to deal with and left businesses facing a bill for a further £5.4billion."
"There was £178.8million in compensation paid out for the 735,000 animals culled on more than 1,600 farms in Scotland. Sheep and pig numbers have never returned to levels seen prior to the outbreak. The human cost was significant ..."
FWi today
"....Professor Julie Fitzpatrick, chief executive and director of Moredun... "Detailed pre-outbreak planning is essential ..Moredun fully supports the results of the official enquiries into the 2001 outbreak, which recommended strongly that future contingency plans should incorporate emergency protective barrier or ring vaccination... this would lead to a considerable reduction in the number of animals requiring to be slaughtered."
The Scotsman's report of the conference quotes Simon Hall, the chief veterinary officer in Scotland, who said he believed the supermarkets would have a more open and relaxed attitude if the issue ever arose again. The epidemiologist, Sam Mansley, reminded the audience that the EU Directive includes a proposal to vaccinate animals as part of the control mechanism. Read all ( For those with a subscription to the Times, Magnus Linklater wrote an excellent article entitled: "The truth finally triumphs over lazy science")

March 15th 2011 ~ FMD vaccination "a real opportunity to build these innovations and flexibilities into our future contingency planning" says Nigel Miller

Alistair Driver writes today in the Farmers Guardian about the conference in Scotland organised jointly by NFU Scotland, the Scottish Government and the Moredun Research Institute - "Foot-and-Mouth - Vaccine to Live" - which took place today. NFUS president Nigel Miller is quoted:
"... a policy which sees animals vaccinated to control FMD and then enter the food chain 'may provide a viable alternative to the mass cull of animals' in future outbreaks. There is a real opportunity to build these innovations and flexibilities into our future contingency planning, to allow us to make improvements and avoid the tragedy of 2001. But to make it work we need buy-in; from farmers being prepared to vaccinate their animals, processors being prepared to handle meat and milk from vaccinated animals and consumers both at home and across Europe being prepared to buy it.... we must find a way to avoid the scenes of mass slaughter of 2001. The economic disruption caused by culling livestock from huge areas, and the scars that left on both individuals who were directly affected, and the wider countryside, is not something any of us want to see again. It is our duty as an industry to equip ourselves with the tools to ensure those scenes are not repeated."
Read in full

March 15th 2011 ~ 1 pm at Great Orton. Short Memorial Service to commemorate illegal slaughter of millions. All welcome. "Except the press and MPs," writes Nick Green

Gordon Swindlehurst of Radio Cumbria will read a poem by Hill Farmer Richard Mawdsley on Radio Cumbria. The poet does not feel he can attend because, we are told, the wounds are still weeping. Nick Green who was very close to what happened in 2001 writes, that the scenes of killing were "Hell on Earth! Ewes aborting during unloading, terrified lambs, inhumane killing. Slaughter men walked out in disgust."
Read Mr Mawdsley's poem. Few things portray with greater poignancy the fact that ten years may have passed but the feelings of disbelief, revulsion and sorrow at a policy that was ignorant and unnecessary most certainly have not. (More on the illegality of the mass killing atGreat Orton)

March 15th 2011 ~ Escaped farm animals slaughtered 'on welfare grounds'

About 30 healthy friesian cows have been shot dead by police marksmen in a field in Wrexham, north Wales. They had wandered away from their farm and into gardens on a housing estate and police rounded them up into a field close to Chirk Community Hospital - and were then told to shoot them all.
This inability of the "authorities" to handle animals without panic and distress reminds one of how the livestock farming skill base has been eroded. It is reminiscent of 2001 and 2007 - but without even the "justification" of disease control. Council officers told the newspaper that the decision to kill the cows was taken "to avoid further distress and suffering to the animals". The legal power cited was Section 18 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 - but this allows destruction only if there is no reasonable alternative to destroying and if it is not reasonably practicable to wait for a veterinary surgeon.
Words are inadequate to comment.

March 14th 2011 ~ UN takes very seriously the decline in bees

A UN Environment Programme report (pdf) says:
"The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century. The fact is that of the 100 crop species that provide 90 per cent of the world's food, over 70 are pollinated by bees"
The UNEP report says new kinds of virulent fungal pathogens that can be deadly to bees are now migrating from one region to another becasue of globalisation while 20,000 flowering plant species many bee species depend on will be lost without greater conservation efforts. There has been a 70 per cent drop in key wildflowers in the last 40 years. Air pollution and the increasing use of chemicals in agriculture is being found to damage bees' immune systems and insecticides and fungicides can act together to be 1,000 times more toxic to bees affecting the sense of direction, memory and brain metabolism. More here - and see our bee page. The loss of bees worldwide is one of the issues discussed by Richard Heinberg in his engaging talk at Totnes last week "The end of Growth"

March 13th 2011 ~ Cheap Meat is dangerous

It is more than ever vital that people find local and healthy sources of food that they trust - and in particular, meat and poultry - even if it does cost a little more. Illegal meat has usually involved cruelty and it jeopardises health - and of course inadequately secure borders mean a constant danger of unwanted pathogens arriving because of the very lucrative Bush Meat trade. Article 8, EC REGULATION 178/2002
"Consumer protection a key object of European General Food Law. Food law "should seek to prevent deceptive and fraudulent practices and enable consumers to make informed choices about the food they eat." Applies to quality, nature and substance of the food as well as to labelling. Trend towards full labelling, including how animals slaughtered."
Laudable aims. None has been properly or adequately addressed. More on the "dirty meat" page

March 12th 2011 ~ Trauma can't be airbrushed, nor guilt Gillded

The NFU's Ben Gill is quoted in this two page spread (pdf) about the 2001 foot and mouth crisis. Where most readers have painful memories of chaos, isolation, incompetence and fear, Mr Gill, it would appear, mainly remembers "cameraderie". He says
"It was a terrible situation but it brought out that spirit which is always there and always comes out in times of crisis.."
An upbeat take on foot and mouth is not appropriate. Authentic memories are too deeply felt. Anthony Gibson has little reason to remember cameraderie from the NFU leadership. As he wrote recently in the FG, Ben Gill wanted him to keep quiet about the contiguous cull - but:
"...it was no good roaring around like Ben Gill saying we must kill and kill and kill until we kill this disease. That was just completely out of touch..."
One emailer comments that it is sad that the NFU lacks "strength of character to admit they were completely off the mark".
"...that the NFU published this piece says something about their ability to analyze their own history and learn from mistakes ... Lessons learnt ??"
Pirbright's David Paton speaks out in favour of a vaccination-to-live policy (although did not in 2001 or 2007) and in a working party paper for the EU, arrived at the conclusion (ten years too late) that "Vaccination and testing should replace unnecessary culling"

March 11th 2011 ~ Hens show empathy to the distress of their chicks

Research at Bristol Avian maternal response to chick distress is reported in Science Daily. The research leader, Jo Edgar, is quoted:
""Our research has addressed the fundamental question of whether birds have the capacity to show empathic responses. We found that adult female birds possess at least one of the essential underpinning attributes of 'empathy'; the ability to be affected by, and share, the emotional state of another." The researchers used chickens as a model species because, under commercial conditions, chickens will regularly encounter other chickens showing signs of pain or distress due to routine husbandry practices or because of the high levels of conditions such as bone fractures or leg disorders...."
University of Bristol's Animal Welfare and Behaviour research group undertook the research; it was funded by the BBSRC Animal Welfare Initiative and is published online in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The conclusions will hardly come as a surprise to those who delight in their poultry - but if the research can help put an end to overcrowding and to practices that are both cruel to animals and dangerous in terms of disease to human beings, this can only be a good thing.

March 11th 2011 ~ "the government is now using the term hill farmers again"

The National Farmers Union's uplands spokesman, Will Cockbain, is quoted in this article from the nfuonline.comwelcoming the £26 million measures to support the uplands (see DEFRA). Mr Cockbain says (extract):
"The NFU is pleased that the government is now using the term hill farmers again and that it recognises hill farming is an important contributor to the national livestock industry and not just a niche sector.....
Likewise, the report recognises that smaller numbers of sheep threaten the hefting system so vital to proper management of large tracts of unfenced land. ...".
44% of England's sheep flock, 30% of its beef cattle and a sixth of its dairy herd, are contained in the English uplands.

March 10th 2011 ~ " Free trade is frankly a lower order consideration when compared to animal welfare and the health of our environment.," says George Eustice, MP for Camborne, Redruth and Hayle.

On Politics Today he writes that
" in recent decades.. considerations such as animal welfare standards have been trumped by seemingly more important economic theories about free trade.... The concern that our farmers will lose out means that the policy response has traditionally been to trim our ambitions and stifle our consciences ...
It is time to challenge that muddled thinking. A civilised society should have a system which encourages competition to raise animal welfare standards, not competition to lower them and we should not jeopardise our farming industry simply because of some arbitrary rules set down by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).."
Mr Eustice challenges the idea that the difficulty of getting worldwide agreement must therefore discourage all attempts to do so.
".. If consumers are willing to recognise that there is a difference between products based on how they are produced why can't legislators recognise the same? It is time to modernise the WTO and the world trade system and give nation states the right to safeguard their markets against meat imports produced in third countries to less civilised standards."
He argues that this does not necessarily mean protectionism or discriminating against developing countries - "In many cases, they pursue less intensive and more traditional farming practices which are better for animal welfare and in other cases, their production processes are already informally regulated by minimum requirements set down by retailers in countries like the UK." Such sentiments from a Conservative MP are well worth reading in full.

March 9th 2011 ~ "Surely, they are owed the assurance that their sacrifices will mean that others will never have to witness the terrible scenes of slaughter ever again....."

The informative Smallholder website's Farm Diary www.smallholderseries.co.uk has blogged about FMD ten years on
".... still no clear policies regarding the use of vaccination-to-live, or use of the so-called 'farm-gate' diagnostic tests that deliver an immediate result rather than a lengthy and possibly deadly wait while samples are delivered to faraway laboratories. And perhaps the most contentious aspect of the 2001 outbreak, the contiguous cull - whereby all healthy livestock on neighbouring farms would be culled to create a 'firebreak' - is still a possibility.
For many - farmers, rural businesses, country dwellers and tourists - the events are still painful to recall. Surely, they are owed the assurance that their sacrifices will mean that others will never have to witness the terrible scenes of slaughter ever again."
The Smallholder website's Carole Youngs was one of the inspirational leaders of the Forest of Dean FMD Action Group in 2001. The group pushed for vaccination and a more accountable policy - and in the April 2001, their reasonable and courteous persistence convinced the Divisional Veterinary Officer (DVO) for Gloucestershire, David Parker, to halt all slaughter until blood tests had been carried out. It was later discovered that only 13 cases in Gloucestershire tested positive in laboratory testing out of 72 so-called "Infected Premises" - and yet 346 other premises had been culled out as "contiguous". The action group saved many more from unnecessary suffering.
It is particularly cheering, ten years on, to see that Carole's Smallholder Series, which supports smallholders with practical and jargon-free advice, has today won a "Rural Oscar" - a CA Enterprise Award for the Wessex Region.

March 9th 2011 ~ "because we produce more electricity than we need, we are looking at other ways to further develop the business..."

A pioneering organic vegetable farm in Ceredigion generates its own electricity via solar power. See walesonline.co.uk
".....installing 39 210W solar PV panels, creating an 8.2KW system. Costing £30,000, it took five days to install the panels and the farm was fully powered and earning money the same week. It received its first payment the following quarter. The panels generate over 80% more electricity than is used by the farm, with the remaining energy being sold back to the grid."
Equally interesting in the article is the farmer's wisdom about composting, and about how soil is "the fragile membrane that goes right throughout the world and yet we ignore it, we abuse it and we are rarely conscious of it."
He speaks too about how current practices have led to "an extraordinary erosion of soils all over the world. Even in better soils in the UK we will lose five tonnes of top soil per hectare per year....it is the soil that feeds the birds and the insects and promotes the eco system. It is the soil that has helped us improve our crops....We're completely committed to supplying only farmers' markets, our own shop and local restaurants. For the last 15 years we have taken no inputs into our farm whatsoever. Compost is the sole generator of our production and we grow all our own plants."

March 7th 2011 ~ Resubmission planning application for a 1000 cow dairy on the outskirts of Welshpool, Powys

The resubmission for one of the first super dairies in Wales: "Extension to the existing dairy unit to accommodate the housing of 1000 dairy cows...." The Council says that "Previous objections WILL NOT be taken into account, you must re-object against the NEW plans. The NEW planning reference is P/2011/0156"
The affected village, Leighton, will hold a public meeting tomorrow in the Village Hall at 8 pm. The farmer, Fraser Jones, claims that the risks posed to groundwater and the managing of slurry, silage and manure are "addressed". More.
Meanwhile, Nocton's Peter Willes is facing three pollution charges.(See Farmers Weekly)
A MORI poll recently found that 65% of people in the East Midlands would not buy milk if they knew it was produced from "zero-grazed" cows kept indoors on large-scale farms.

March 7th 2011 ~ The legacy of Margaret Beckett's ill advised and complicated system of RPA payments- "chaos, errors and EU fines"- still rumbles on

An evidently embarrassed James Paice had to tell Parliament on Friday that
"...Given the complexity of the existing systems and the inadequacy of the IT systems, speeding up payments is not simply a matter of increasing resources....some 140 "fixes" have been made to the IT system..., I regret to inform the House that the RPA will not achieve the target of paying 95% of claims by value by 31 March 2011. The estimated figure will be nearer to 90%."
The Board now wants to bypass the IT system by making "manually validated payments" to those who would otherwise be unlikely to be paid on the system before 30 June. However, there is evident concern that payments might still not meet the required standard of accuracy in order to avoid further EU fines. See RPA page

March 5th 2011 ~ South Korea to abandon "FMD free without vaccination"

The South Korean government is now considering changing its status to "FMD-free with vaccination". The country paid a very heavy price for delaying vaccination until the disease was out of control. The status of "FMD free without vaccination" confers a 3 month trade advantage. However, the South Korean gamble of protecting their miniscule export trade rather than protecting their farmers and animals led to anguish throughout South (and now North) Korea see below The appalling cruelty involved in the live burial of a million pigs sickened people across the world as well as decent people in the country itself.
In the Korean newspaper english.chosun.com we see the "official" reason for the change of status:
"Because we gave up culling livestock that would spread foot-and-mouth virus and have already vaccinated livestock nationwide, we run a much greater risk of a chronic latent foot-and-mouth virus than before. If we reduce or stop vaccination, the risk of recurrence or spread of the virus increases, so introduction of constant vaccination is inevitable."
It should be pointed out that the vaccines used were Intervet's inactivated oil-adjuvanted vaccine, produced in Cologne. Notes on Transmission and Vaccination (given to warmwell.com by Keith Sumption in 2002) show that any suggestion that animals treated with such a modern vaccine pose a risk from "chronic latent foot-and-mouth virus" stems either from ignorance or from mere political face-saving.

March 4th 2011 ~ "What's needed is government commitment to food security through its support for a healthy, modern agriculture"

Rare good news from parliament was the inauguration in February of the new All Party group for Agroecology It has among its ranks some of our most respected politicians: Tim Farron, Roger Williams, Andrew George, Michael Meacher, the Countess of Mar and others, and chaired by Baroness Sue Miller and Robert Flello. It has been described as an antidote to Government Chief Scientist Professor John Beddington's "Foresight" report. ("The Future of Food and Farming", while it acknowledges an energy-poor future, still thinks GM crops and high-tech industrial farming provide an appropriate answer.)
As Geoffrey Lean pointed out in June 2010 (Telegraph) a United Nations expert group concluded that month
"that "the best option" was not to use ever more fertilisers, pesticides and machines but to adopt the environmentally friendly practices of agro-ecology - planting trees and crops together, mixing livestock and arable farming, and using natural predators to control pests and diseases.... Prof Jules Pretty of Essex University, who looked at 286 projects in 57 developing countries, in the biggest study of its kind, recorded an average 79 per cent increase in yields, while 350,000 acres of land in what used to be called "the Desert of Tanzania"have been rehabilitated in this way over two decades."
(Food security page)

March 4th 2011 ~ "Management jargon is taking over organisations. People don't understand what the other person is saying" Lady Justice Hallett

It is cheering that the coroner in charge of the 7/7 inquests has roundly criticised the jargon used by public services. www.pressandjournal.co.uk As she said in court:
"What worries me is all you senior people of these organisations are allowing yourselves to be taken over by management jargon.
I think people at the top need to say we have to communicate with people in plain English..."
It is months ago now that Paul Flynn, an MP on the Public Administration Select Committee suggested that the Committee might look into
"the vile verbal atrocities that clog Parliamentary communications".
A lack of clarity may stem from ignorance, laziness - or a Sir Humphrey Appleby style of deliberate obfuscation. The documents that blather incomprehensibly may indeed be designed to prevent the asking of enlightening questions. In the case of the FMD Contingency Plan, some urgently needed questions include:
"How exactly are borders being policed against vectors of FMD?"
"Where will the personnel needed in an outbreak come from?"
"Has the Department enough equipment and the expertise to use it?"
"What plans are in place for rapid and accurate RT-PCR diagnosis?"
"What justification can there be, apart from the EU's blatant protectionism, for a delay in vaccination to protect our animals?"
"Is the communication needed to bring everyone together clear enough?"

March 3/4th 2011 ~ Farming Today's look at "pressure on farms to increase in size" ignores the possibility that the end of oil dependent agrifarming is nigh...

The news (Independent) that the International Energy Agency is seriously warning that the "age of cheap oil is over" comes, ironically, on the same day as Farming Today's warning about the end of family farming. There seems to be either ignorance or denial at work here. Industrial, large scale farms are dependent on cheap oil, cheap water, cheap fodder /fertiliser and cheap parts from abroad. All of this assumes a business as usual scenario - and that looks increasingly vulnerable even if Saudi Arabia is not, as many fear, wildly overestimating its ability to meet oil demand.
When Cuba was nearly completely cut off from imports, both in terms of fossil fuels and food, highly mechanized agriculture simply had to be abandoned. Small organic farms fed the country and the skilled farmer became the most respected and well paid member of society.
Still, the Farming Today episode is available for 6 more days on the iPlayer.

March 2nd 2011 ~ Select Committee warns that Government leaves science advice to the last minute in national emergencies

The "Communication" section (page 40) of the Commons Science & Technology Committee report cites the Phillips inquiry into BSE (published just months before FMD was noticed in the UK) which, it says, "highlighted the following lessons on uncertainty and the communication of risk" These included:
• To establish credibility it is necessary to generate trust. ...Trust can only be generated by openness.
• Openness requires recognition of uncertainty, where it exists.
• The importance of precautionary measures should not be played down on the grounds that the risk is unproved.
• Scientific investigation of risk should be open and transparent.
• The advice and the reasoning of advisory committees should be made public... (etc)
The secretiveness of the Silver Birch exercise into FMD, the lack of field expertise in vaccination , the complacency about the "robustness" of border checks, DEFRA's cavalier ignoring of its stakeholders, and the convoluted jargon of the Contingency Plans - make all too clear that such lessons have not yet been taken on board.

March 3rd 2011 ~ Is there widespread trust and confidence in so-called "sound scientific advice"

It was a phrase we heard ad nauseam in 2001. Following the DCVO's assertions (West Country's BBC Inside Out - transcript and YouTube 14th February 2011) such as, "We're confident that we will apply epidemiologically sound approach to ..er..disease control", the farmer presenting the programme, Paul Wolton, said,
" I find myself more concerned now ... we have the nuts and bolts in place to deal with foot and mouth disease such as better movement controls - and yet no firm policy framework within which to place them effectively. ... without stronger national border control and a definite policy on vaccination-to-live, we could possibly find ourselves with another contiguous cull with all the horrors and memories that brings." .
If this bothers the Department at all, DEFRA could perhaps ask itself why it is that so many farmers remain deeply suspicious of its ability to help rather than make things more difficult.
In the Report above, in the minutes of oral evidence taken last October, we see Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, (one of the champions of the mathematical model that drove the infamous contiguous cull) referring to
"what happened in foot and mouth disease in 2001 with the Chief Veterinary Officer and the Chief Scientist barely being able to speak to each other..."
He perhaps forgets that CVO Scudamore's warnings about the UK's 'vulnerability' to foot and mouth six months earlier had been ignored, just as his concerns about the appropriateness of the model were. Chief Scientist King was not one to listen to opposing views. That all too human frailties and lack of professionalism in some parts of Government continue to jeopardise our future can hardly be denied.

March 2nd 2011 ~ "... "its not like an ordinary recession ...you may not get it back for many years, if ever...".Governor of the Bank of England

The UK is now so addicted to cheap oil, to "efficient" just-in-time supply lines and to the economies of scale dependent on easily obtainable credit and cheap energy - that when this trickles away, all our certainties trickle away too.
Mervyn King (Independent) says he is surprised there has not been more public fury at the bankers' "mistakes". UKUncut is doing a brilliant job - as is its hastily copied US counterpart - but the media are still reluctant to give this much coverage.
What is urgently needed is some honesty - particularly about food security and the need for ordinary people to take some action to protect their futures.
Mervyn King is at least telling it like it is:
"its not like an ordinary recession ...you may not get it back for many years, if ever..."
It is going to be up to small communities to do what they can to mitigate the chaos that is round the corner. The very highly recommended Transition Initiative works from the bottom up. This Friday at 8pm in the Totnes Civic Hall, Richard Heinberg (See oil page) will be talking about Transition (See terrific short video of Transition Heathrow ). As he said so wearily a year ago:
"....the strategy being adopted here is denial. ..." Read in full
"Extend and pretend" can't postpone things much longer - as Mervyn King is all too aware. The assumption that if we just grow more, using more "gene-engineered crop varieties" all will be well is a sad fallacy - and it is time to wake up.

March 2nd 2011 ~ "One day when the public realise food doesn't originate from the supermarket shelf ...."

The owner of small family farm in the Peak District, in answer to the query from farmsubsidy.org asking if the farm was a "multi-national" (sic)
" ... we have decided to sell our dairy herd and instead run a few token suckler cows (which) will keep the farm tidy but our productivity will plummet, we will go from significant food producers to park keepers. One day when the public realise food doesn't originate from the supermarket shelf we will once again be in demand and the supermarkets, middle ground retailers and idiot discount chains will come round with their begging bowls asking us to start farming productively again. I look forward to telling them where to shove it!
....Don't even get me started on the return on investment which you would expect from the capital invested in any other business.."
Read in full

February 28th 2011 ~ "The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 (DDA) was a knee-jerk piece of legislation which has done little to protect the public..."

Scotland's new law, the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act, which champions the principle of "deed not breed", came into effect at the weekend. The issue of dangerous owners whose irresponsibililty is the true underlying problem, must be addressed to prevent dog attacks. The Dogs Trust is quoted by Vets Online: "Scotland is leading the way on this issue, but more needs to be done across the rest of the UK. " See also www.horseandcountry.tv

February 28th 2011 ~ "Hopefully, it will get some truth out."

Until we read the comment that appears at the bottom of readers' reactions to the warmwell.com article in the Farmers Guardian, we had not known about the ongoing blog of a man whose memories of carrying out the cull in the West Country in 2001 have driven him to write about them now, ten years on. He writes,
"As time goes on, you will be able to read all about the fiddles with the 'official numbers', the hiding of infected premises by calling them something else, and the widespread incompetence of the management.
As I was involved in some of the injunction cases, there will also be that side to come out as time goes on."
Today's instalment of the blog.

February 28th 2011 ~ Western Morning News' front page today: "Smugglers' charter" fears as UK Border Agency abandons Cornwall, moving customs cover to Gatwick

It will be remembered that Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer, Alick Simmons, asserted this month that border controls were "robust enough to prevent the disease" and that he thought it "rather preposterous to consider" that returning holidaymakers were "a substantial threat to livestock of the South West or any part of the UK." See www.thisiscornwall.co.uk
See also the news report today that there is "a regular flow of smuggled meat into the country"

February 28th 2011 ~ The cost of using real-time diagnosis - and of not using it

We are very grateful to Tetracore and to our American friend, Gary, for giving us the maximum prices for just one example of the rapid RT-PCR technology that has been developed and that could be used on-site to discover, before clinical symptoms appear, whether animals have been infected with the FMD virus. Extract:
"...The VetAlert^TM Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) Virus target specific reagents are a set of primers, fluorogenic probe and mastermix for the specific identification of FMD viral RNA by real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)....The single tube method is easy to perform and results are obtained in less than 2 hours.
The assays are optimized for use on multiple platforms including the Cepheid SmartCycler, Roche LightCycler, ABI Prism, BioRad iCycler, Stratagene MX3005P, and Qiagen Rotor-Gene Q...."
See documentation (pdf) The latest version "TCor4" costs the equivalent (maximum price) of about £9.900 but comes with a mini centrifuge and case to carry everything in. The FMD assays is sold as units of 64rxns at £7.4 per rxn, so about £473 per unit.
The total cost for each culled farm in 2001, including compensation, cleaning up etc was at least £250,000 each. Gordon Brown estimated £2.6 billion for the cost of FMD2001 but a more comprehensive estimate (More on costs) puts the financial costs at £20 billion. More on rapid on-site pre-clinical signs diagnosis.

February 27th 2011 ~ Agrifarming depends on cheap energy, cheap credit, cheap water and parts manufactured abroad. For how long can agrifarming continue?

The warmwell oil page was begun in 2004. In spite of our dawning realisation of the reality of peak oil then, an actual crisis seemed decades away. But with the present financial meltdown and now the escalating refusal of populations to be kept poor by the corrupting influence of wealth and speculation, we are seriously looking at the likelihood of global unrest - and oil prices reaching $200 a barrel.
For intensive farming, which puts economy of scale before all other considerations, a just-in-time economy depends on everything staying the same: cheap imports, steady supply chains, constant shipping and letters of credit - and overall the availability of all the things cheap oil makes possible such as fuel, feed, fertilisers.
Once again, we would recommend the "big picture" foresight of Nicole Foss and the Automatic Earth website. As they said on Friday: "some people in the mainstream financial world are finally starting to connect a few crucial dots."

February 26th 2011 ~ MBM, organophosphates, BSE, and broken lives

The EU is considering returning to the meat and bone meal feed (MBM) that was widely blamed for BSE. (See www.vetsweb.com) There was never hard evidence to show that BSE was caused by feeding scrapie-infected Meat and Bone Meal to cattle. Far more worrying were - and are - the organophosphates (OPs), the class of chemical to which sarin belongs, and to which so many sheep, cattle, and farmers were exposed before their compulsory use was stopped in 1992.
The late Mark Purdey's painstaking research led him to the conclusion that OPs accelerate the absorption of manganese in the brain to misfold the prion protein.
"This generates free radicals which in turn set off a chain reaction - rather like cluster bombs which destroy the brain," he explained to The Times in 2000
His theory was that BSE is not transmissable between cohorts, that thousands of cattle had been slaughtered unnecessarily, that vCJD was not associated with infected beef - and that there were those who had made a fortune out of the panic. No wonder he was so unpopular with those who wanted the BSE Phillips Inquiry to exonerate OPs and conclude that MBM was indeed the "vector" of BSE. Blaming MBM helped both the government and the agrochemical industry. They successfully evaded legal action and only the victims, who were never warned about the effects of OPs, suffered. (More here)

February 26th 2011 ~ South Korea - finally - "completes vaccinations on cattle to contain FMD"

Even though the South Koreans ignored vaccination for far too long, it still seems that they have very nearly "contained" the disease now.
"... FMD.... now appears to show some signs of mitigating as no new cases of the disease have been confirmed among cows over the past 22 days. .... expected to be contained by early March upon the completion of the second round of vaccinations..... has led to the slaughter of more than 3.39 million animals, with losses estimated at over 2 trillion won (1.8 billion U.S. dollars)." news.xinhuanet.com
Stamping out alone might have saved their virtually non-existent "export market" a few extra weeks' wait - but it could have killed almost every susceptible animal before stopping the disease. Late vaccination is cold comfort to those who lost their animals anyway - while the reputation of the country has been very deeply tarnished by the mass live burial of pigs (Thanks to the FMD news service of the University of California, Davis, we learn the figure of one million animals killed this way noticiaaldia.com Spanish) has emerged) - a cruelty almost impossible even to contemplate, so you are advised not click the link to the video.

February 25th 2011 ~ Warmwell.com article on "FMD ten years on" is on Farmers Guardian online today

As the week's articles on FMD ten years on in the Farmers Guardian have progressed from the strange and defiant comments of Nick Brown and Ben Gill, the tone has changed to more challenging comments by those in the bloody thick of it: Nick Green, Paula Wolton and Anthony Gibson. Warmwell's article today is here.

February 24 2011 ~ "existing legislation regarding vaccination should be amended in such a way that vaccination becomes a realistic option in the event of a crisis".

Did anyone in DEFRA ever read or understand the key messages prepared by an FMD expert group to the EU in May? As we said below, the paper's key messages provide a beacon of light in the darkness since they made clear that emergency vaccination itself should "be directly linked to the availability of effective diagnostic tools substantiating that vaccinated animals, or meat and other products obtained from vaccinated animals, are free from pathogens and can be traded safely."
Other key mesages included:
• Emergency vaccination has to be understood as vaccinate-to-live,
• Diagnostic banks for particular infectious diseases are necessary to supplement vaccine banks and must be part of a strategic plan prepared during 'peace time' ready for an emergency .
• existing legislation regarding vaccination should be amended in such a way that vaccination becomes a realistic option in the event of a crisis.
• Trade issues should be resolved.
• Relevant legislation regarding veterinary medicinal products is not well suited to approve the use of vaccines in emergency situations.
And the overall recommendation offered just at the time last May when a review of legislation dealing with veterinary medicinal products provided an ideal opportunity to introduce a mechanism for the approval of vaccines for emergency use, was that "Vaccination and testing should replace unnecessary culling" Read summary (and link to full paper)

February 24th 2011 ~ So much for EFSA's independence - or being there in the interests of food safety

Corporate lobbying is not in the public interest - especially when food giants lobby the EU, are able to outcompete independent and local producers, and push for low environmental standards. One wonders how it is that so-called EFSA experts are able to advise on policy when they are close to the food and drink industry.
Four members of the European Food Standards Authority are blatantly lobbying on behalf of GM or the Food Industry. (Their photographs suggest that even if they have no interest in the safety and ethics of food production, no one could deny that they eat well.)
Extract from pdf "Serial conflicts of interest on EFSA's management board" : "...EFSA has recently been criticised because its scientific assessments of new GM crops and pesticides rely almost exclusively on corporate research data. Some EFSA experts have also been accused of being too close to the food and drink industry . Several cases of 'revolving doors' (where EFSA employees move straight to industry, or from industry to EFSA) and conflicts of interest have been highlighted. Now, Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has discovered that three EFSA board members are advisors for Big Food companies, working through industry-funded think tanks which aim to manipulate political and scientific debate concerning food risks. A fourth member of the board is director of a fund which has shares in a company selling GM feed..."
Read in full

23/24 February 2011 ~ "This rapid strip test is simple, easy and fast for clinical testing on field sites"

Yet another rapid on-site diagnostic test for foot and mouth. This one, developed by the Chinese to detect serotype A is a "simple and rapid colloidal gold-based immunochromatogarpic strip test"
"....no special instruments and skills are required and the result can be obtained within 15 min. To our knowledge, this is the first rapid immunochromatogarpic assay for serotype A of FMDV."
As Roger Breeze says below " the pen side dipstick tests for FMD and CSF are terrific in less developed countries of the world with difficult transport conditions and few human or fiscal resources. But they are surely irrelevant to the US, which pioneered on farm portable real time PCR testing for these diseases a decade ago to provide laboratory standard state of the art detection linked to a Command and Control System via the wireless internet." All we have to do is buy them - and use them.
There is not one single mention of them in the UK Contingency Plan.

23/24 February 2011 ~ Caroline Spelman is to be congratulated on her efforts at EU level to ensure that the battery cage ban is not delayed

British Veterinary Association President, Harvey Locke, said: (Extract from World Veterinary Association )
"We are delighted that UK's robust opposition to a proposed delay in enforcing the ban on battery cages for laying hens convinced EU Agriculture Ministers that the ban must come fully into force on 1 January 2012, as planned. This measure will improve the welfare of around 250 million egg laying hens across the EU... The egg industry throughout Europe has had 12 years to prepare for this change in law and there is no excuse to further continue the suffering of egg laying hens being reared in cramped, barren, battery cages."
Can DEFRA not similarly use its influence on the now outdated FMD restrictions on vaccination - especially when one considers the EU stance on Bluetongue vaccination.
When will the farming unions, the Veterinary associations and government unite and get the illogical and restrictive EU rules on foot and mouth vaccination changed?

23/24 February 2011 ~ "the shameful and scandalous story of the FMD epidemic is all but forgotten. Arguably worse than forgotten, as it never really came to light at all."

Lynda Davies, the National Co-ordinator of the group that fought a brave but ultimately doomed battle to try to win compensation for the swill feeding industry, has sent warmwell.com an essay by Neil Datson entitled., "Here's One he Buried Earlier", a twelve page (pdf) account of the Foot and Mouth crisis. Mr Datson concludes,
"Ten years down the road, it is surely high time that at least some of that false narrative was exposed"
(which is indeed what this website has been attempting to do every single day since it was created in 2001).
It will be remembered that the swill feeders had their livelihoods taken away because there had to be a "source" of infection - even though it has never been established what caused the index case - (highly unlikely to have been pigs since the disease had been rippling unnoticed in apparently healthy sheep for weeks). Like many who were so unjustly treated during that year, the swillfeeders' claim for redress was treated with a deplorable high handedness. Although the Ombudsman found that DEFRA were guilty of maladministration in not realising the implications the ban on swill feeding would have on the livelihoods of those farmers involved in the swill feeding industry, it made little difference. Jonathan Shaw (Hansard) was to make the outrageous statement in May 2008 that " there is no un-remedied injustice which requires reconsideration of the question."

20/21st February 2011 ~ Swan deaths at Stratford on Avon - lead poisoning or Bird Flu? ''I think we are looking at a virus," says the former Stratford Mayor

Please see H5N1 page

20/21st February 2011 ~ Korea: "There is no economic gain in culling millions of animals to protect a small amount of exports"

joongangdaily.joins.comquotes now-remorseful Korean government officials:
"We've been blinded by the meaningless international reputation [of the FMD-free status without vaccination] and tiny exports. The time has come to seriously reconsider our priorities in the livestock industry."
The Korean government disastrously delayed vaccination until January 12th - and as a result of this failed gamble, has turned the country into a massive graveyard of farm animals. As the article says, "More than 3.3 million cows and pigs have been slaughtered, livestock farmers have suffered emotionally and the country is stuck with a bill of trillions of won to compensate farmers for culled animals. Much of this could have been avoided if the government had chosen the more effective and less costly solution of vaccination instead of killing cattle and pigs."

20/21st February 2011 ~ "Every step was careless and unsatisfactory"

When told about the loss of vaccine-free status making meat exports less desirable, a 60 year old farmer named Park, describing what he said to joongangdaily.joins.com was the most devastating experience of his life, said:
"Exports? What exports are we talking about? We produce barely enough meat for domestic consumption. There is no beef available for export. I buried all my cattle on Jan. 10 ... by the time the government made the decision, it was already too late."
Read article in full.
In an interview with CBS radio Representative Kim Hyo-seuk of the Democratic Party said:
" The preparation manual was insufficient, quarantine measures at the border and initial responses and disinfection were lacking, not to mention the vaccination process. Every step was careless and unsatisfactory"
What we find quite inexplicable is the continuing refusal - not only in the UK government but in newspapers, radio and televsion too - to explain to people that these criticisms could apply equally to UK policy in 2001. The mass slaughter was unnecessary, and the policy based not only on a similarly unjustifiable gamble on trade (See Emma Tennant's "Senseless Slaughter") but also founded on a mathematical model which was about as flawed as it was possible to be. Officials who continue to defend policies of slaughter-only must read the articles now coming out of Korea and seriously reconsider the UK Contingency Plan.

Sunday 20th February 2011 ~ 'Farming Today This Week' on this, the Tenth Anniversary of FMD, devoted their programme to horses.

An emailer adds,
"Not quite true - they did mention that horses could not get it (although Mr Blair still does not realise this) and that it made things a bit inconvenient for riding in the countryside etc. They should be ashamed of themselves."
In the last few days, the Farmers Guardian has devoted a great deal of space to quoting luminaries of the calibre of Ben Gill, Nick Brown, David King and others, who continue to claim that the slaughter-only policy was necessary. At least one can read a refutation of Ben Gill's nonsense about vaccination below Friday's FG article - but today's piece on : "Have the lessons been learned?" is a catalogue of claims that make one "consider" whether one still has the will to live.

Saturday 19 February 2011 ~ "Foot and mouth marked the nadir of the fortunes of farming - that was the worst it ever got. People were deeply traumatised and some wounds will never heal." Anthony Gibson

Today marks the tenth anniversary of foot-and-mouth being recognised as present in the UK The Farmers Weekly quotes the NFU West Country regional director then, Anthony Gibson. He says that the contingency plan was outdated and that the
"biggest tragedy was the contiguous cull. One lesson we haven't learnt is that prevention is better than cure. There is still a lot of the disease around and we're not taking any more precautions to keep it out than we were in 2001."
The goat memorial was commissioned by Hilary Peters and placed at Greenwich in 2001. Those who remember the late Dot Boag will also remember her words:
"I will never ever forget the horror we all went through that awful night when Andy was asking for help to save his sheep. He was up late lambing, knowing that Maff would be there to kill them the next morning. I think about that every night before I go to sleep, every night.
We are not going to lose sight of the ethical issues that lie beneath our wish for political action. The fact that what happened is WRONG is what drives us."
The callousness and chaos was often beyond belief. Symbolic of the whole bloody shambles of the contiguous cull is that in the whole of Wigtownshire, 15 Premises were "clinically diagnosed" as having FMD. Of those only 13 were tested, and only 2 actually had FMD. In addition to the animals on 2 genuine IPs, another 88,446 animals were automatically slaughtered after the decision taken on 15 March to cull all contiguous and 3 km premises. A decision based on the flawed mathematical model that, against the advice of the Pirbright experts and others, drove the policy of 2001 and destroyed lives and livelihoods.

February 18th 2011 ~ "The way to ensuring public confidence in food and farming is by making sure the authorities are open to public scrutiny at every opportunity."

Tom Rigby, until last week NFU Chairman for Lancashire, has sent his own view of this year's NFU conference. His interest in the problem of organophosphate poisoning (caused by the sheep dip chemical which, until 1992, farmers were obliged by law to use) is allied to his concern that the focus on infected beef as being a cause of new variant CJD has been misplaced. He writes too about how the conference approached the vexed question of GM. Read in full

February 17th 2011 ~ Grazing cows or sheep cut Nitrous oxide emissions

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is about 300 times as powerful as CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere. The Telegraph recently reported on a study that found that cattle grazed on the grasslands of China actually reduces nitrous oxide and that grass fed cattle in the UK and US can also be good for the environment as long as the animals are free range. See also recent posts on the importance of grazing for the landscape and for the planet.
We are told that the withdrawal of plans for the zero-grazing super-dairy at Nocton will soon be replaced by others. Quite apart from the ethics of such mega farms, the oil needed to produce the fertilisers to grow the crops and to run the machinery to harvest them for zero grazing is getting more and more expensive. Peak oil is now quietly accepted by governments - and even before this bites, the collapse of global credit means that supply lines for imports look ever more fragile. Humans cannot eat grass but ruminant livestock convert it into foods that the British have been eating for thousands of years. The proper use of grazing land for the production of good local food is vital. As Alan Titchmarsh in the BBC series "The Nature of Britain" pointed out,
"Even if it were possible to plough our grasslands and moorlands and grow vegan food, the carbon release would be far greater than centuries of the exhalations of cattle and sheep."

February 17th 2011 ~ The Uplands, a unique national asset, needs urgent action - (and especially broadband)"

The Efra Select Committee's specific recommendation to reintroduce headage payments is "a step in the wrong direction" says the CLA Deputy President. Referring to the CLA's Uplands report High Hopes (pdf) which "spelled out in greater detail the actions required to boost agriculture and the rural economy in our upland areas", he says:
"action is urgently needed on the Common Agricultural Policy; environmental services, especially carbon storage and water management; planning and affordable rural housing; rural services, especially broadband; renewable energy; and the remit of national parks."
He says that the EFRA report, while recognising that the internet is a crucial tool in reinvigorating upland areas, missed the key point:
" the key is to ensure universal coverage and adequate broadband speeds."
The Uplands play a huge part in the economy of its region; tourism industry, catchment for water supply, source of food etc. Detailed recommendations can be seen at the end of the Uplands report High Hopes See also the post below from last April

February 16th/17th 2011 ~ "The Secretary of State is obliged under Regulations 9 and 10 of the Foot-and-Mouth Disease (Control of Vaccination) (England) Regulations 2006 (2006/183)...."

Yesterday Lord Burnett (Liberal Democrat) asked Lord Henley and DEFRA what sounded like a simple and straightforward question: "what research they have commissioned to assess the efficacy of vaccinating livestock against foot and mouth disease; and when they expect to take a decision on that matter."
Lord Henley's answer mentioned "further research to develop improved/novel vaccine candidates" - as if existing high potency vaccines were not already excellent. He spoke too about "using modelling capabilities when appropriate" failing to mention how tragically inappropriate was the Imperial College model that led to the unnecessary contiguous cull in 2001. Our Island must, of course, take into account "all the factors that are required under the FMD directive" - but the crux of the matter is that the decision to vaccinate rests with the Secretary of State only once an outbreak has been confirmed and "using all the evidence available to her".
One must hope that the advice offered to the Secretary of State is better than that given to Lord Henley - whose link to DEFRA's vaccination protocol led, rather appropriately, to a dead end.

February 16th 2011 ~ Nocton Dairies withdraws its plans for the "Super Dairy", the 3770-cow dairy unit in Lincolnshire.

See video and report here - thanks to Farmers Weekly
"The move marks an end to efforts to establish Britain's first super dairy."
(See also below) A statement from the company said: "...The sole reason for this decision is the response of the Environment Agency, which has maintained its objection to the proposal. ..." This, the "sole reason" is enough for there to be feelings of enormous relief in the thousands of people who felt revulsion at the idea of a US-style intensive zero-grazing dairy. A spokesman from the company called all objectors "misinformed single interest pressure groups".
(Farmers Guardian report is here.)

February 15th/16th 2011 ~ Pushing the hard decisions ever further down the road - the unbearable delay in getting vital tools "validated"

In November, there was a conference in Washington DC entitled "Protecting Agricultural Infrastructure: Defining the Needs and Requirements for Agricultural Screening Tools" The paper - as Dr Breeze points out - implies that APHIS lacks definitive modern diagnostic tools that are capable of QUICKLY and accurately identifying dangerous pathogens, mixtures of dangerous pathogens, and new variants of dangerous pathogens. Little wonder that in his email today, Roger Breeze, former Director of Plum Island, writes to say that such tools already exist - all APHIS has to do is buy them:
"Two that come to mind are the Tessarae re-sequencing microarray and the IBIS 5000. The Tessarae microarray identifies any of some 200 different viral and bacterial agents (and mixtures of these) in a single 5 hour assay that also provides about 1500 bases of the actual genomic sequence of any pathogen present, including new variants not seen before.
The IBIS 5000 identifies any of hundreds of pathogens, including new strains not seen before, again in a single 5 hour assay. (Both these assays are performed at biological safety level 2 so there is no need for a high containment diagnostic laboratory ...." (email in full)
One shares the dismay that prompts Dr Breeze to write: "I have five sons and a daughter so I will add a codicil to my will, tasking a great-great-grandchild to check in on APHIS' progress in 2061".
(We understand today from a despairing farmer in Kansas that the official response plan for FMD is, he was told, to "have a sample collected by the observing vet, then put in a State Highway Patrol car, and taken to Manhattan, with a "split" of the sample then Air Expressed to Plum Island.......no need for a Portable.")

February 15th 2011 ~ Bulgaria may have spoken too soon

Just when Bulgaria officialdom thought its kill-only policy seemed to have paid off, we read today of 15 suspect cases found in the village of Stefan Karadjovo, near Yambol in southeastern Bulgaria. We await results with anxiety for the animals in the surrounding farms. ( It will be remembered that in 2001, contiguous culling took place in many cases without waiting for test results - so many of which proved to be negative. Thankfully, it appears this afternoon that the Bulgarian samples are too)

February 15th 2011 ~ "The way Argentina sees it, before it even considers ending its vaccination programme, Europe will have one of its own"

Ten years on, it is sobering to look at a Countryfile programme made in September 2001 and its prediction of a vaccination policy soon being taken for granted in Europe. The Chief Vet of Argentina, bemused by the UK stance, was asked by Charlotte Smith " Would you have considered slaughter if you could have afforded it?" Dr Bernardo Cane replies, " It's not a question of the budget, it's a question of they are not going to stop the disease!" (full transcript)
In Europe there is EU funding available precisely for the costs of emergency vaccination, through the Council Decision on Veterinary Expenditure. It is considerable fund - but, as usual, it is up to individual member states to apply - and that requires both understanding and energy from the government.
"Stamping-out" can give no guarantee that there is no "silent" disease unless all the animals are killed and its wider costs simply cannot bear comparison with vaccination.
One Argentian farmer in 2001:"There's about 19 million head of cattle in the province of Buenos Aires alone. How could you possibly think of slaughtering that many cattle?" Yet for the UK in 2001 no one was able to stop an insane policy from killing at least 10 million of our own animals.

February 15th 2011 ~ BBC Inside-Out programmes from Cumbria and from Devon

Although moving as it stands, the Cumbria programme was not able fully to convey the waste, the errors and the cynicism - so the person who uploaded it to YouTube, the redoubtable Nick Green of Cumbria, added some written comments of his own beneath the images - "..so it is unlikely to be left there for long," he says wryly.
If you live in the UK, you can watch the Cumbria programme as it was transmitted here on the BBC iPlayer. The harder-hitting and more challenging Devon programme is on iPlayer too. You can watch it here - or read the transcript

February 15th 2011 ~ "The regulations ought to line up with the science. It's a quite cynical seeking of commercial advantage."

Anthony Gibson on the BBC's Inside Out programme last night (South West)
"The science is quite clear: vaccinated meat is perfectly healthy; there's a test available now to distinguish between an animal that's been vaccinated and an animal that has genuinely got the disease - and yet the penalties on our export trade, if we vaccinate as opposed to slaughter, are still there.
And that is because the countries who don't reckon they're going to get foot and mouth disease want to maintain that little bit of extra trade barrier against those that have got foot and mouth disease.
And really we ought to have got rid of that in the ten years nearly that have elapsed."
Read full transcript of the BBC programme. Compare the clear thinking and humanity of Mr Gibson, the farmers, and the former president of the RCVS with the frankly incoherent replies given by the DCVO about vaccination.(But since he was personally very much involved in the terrible 2001 policy, perhaps his reticence is understandable.) The repeat of the filmed programme itself should soon be available

February 14th 2011 ~ BBC South West's Inside Out programme - a hard hitting exposé of our current unpreparedness

In spite of having been reduced and cut down to 9 minutes, farmer Paula Wolton's interviews and comments form the best example we have seen in the media of just how badly farmers were treated by the contiguous cull - and how far from reassured they feel by the (here very blustered) statements coming from DEFRA. The deputy CVO was anything but impressive at the end of the piece. It was a courageous stance for the programme to have taken and there will be many tonight who feel both gratitude and admiration for all who were interviewed by Paula Wolton and spoke from the heart and with such clarity. See full transcript.

February 14th 2011 ~ "... it is long past time for a radical overhaul of plans to combat foreign animal disease introductions - accidental or deliberate."

When one considers the current trial taking place in South Africa over a terrorist threat to release foot-and-mouth disease in the U.K one is reminded of a paper by Roger Breeze written as long ago as 2003: "The public will not accept mass slaughter... nor is such slaughter necessary any longer. Our starting point must be that we will not get into a situation in which slaughter of millions of animals is necessary: this is what terrorists want to see." Read in full

February 14th 2011 ~ "Deputy Chief Vet Alick Simmons said border controls were already robust enough to prevent the disease." BBC

The BBC today reports that Anthony Gibson, the former NFU director for the South West region says there should be tougher controls for travellers arriving from countries like Bulgaria, South Korea and Japan which have reported outbreaks of the disease. He is quoted:
"FMD is unlikely to spread to the UK from Bulgaria through direct contact between livestock, let alone from South Korea. But the more FMD virus there is circulating in any part of the world, the greater the danger of it reaching these shores, be it on the shoes of a returning holidaymaker, on the inside of a shipping container, or in illegally imported food."
It is unlikely that anyone could disagree with so sensible a statement. However, England's deputy chief veterinary officer does - and claims that border controls are "robust enough to prevent the disease". This is rather surprising. It is significant that Exeter airport refused to be interviewed on this subject for this evening's BBC InsideOut programme (see below) - and that Alick Simmons brought his own interview in the same programme to an abrupt end. Such reticence suggests that there can be no genuine grounds for complacency.

February 14th 2011 ~ "The choice of vaccination or not should be made on virology and epidemic grounds, not for political, economic, trade and other reasons irrelevant to an FMD outbreak "

Yesterday, warmwell.com was sent an email setting out very clearly why the virologist and farmer, Dr Ruth Watkins, feels there are no valid reasons for the trade rules that penalise EU farmers for using emergency vaccination against FMD. In yesterday's Countryfile it was painful to see the farmer David Handley say he would much prefer vaccination, then qualify that by mentioning the difficulty of the EU restrictions. The ostensible justification for these restrictions is safety from spread byFMD "carriers". But as Dr Watkins makes clear, this is illogical:
"there can be carrier animals that were never vaccinated and these can be a risk. This is a known fact. The risk from undetected carrier animals is greater if vaccination is not used than if it is!"
Apart from the decision about vaccination, the most important features in managing an FMD outbreak are
• rapid identification of an infected premise,
• movement standstill,
• culling the confirmed infected premise promptly together with
• prompt removal of the dead to the rendering plant and disinfection,
• and careful sanitary measures.
The practice of culling so-called "dangerous contacts" could be dropped in favour of careful observation and testing. Dr Watkins, whose knowledge of the virus is extensive, concludes, "Surely the success in the control of Bluetongue by a similar vaccine (inactivated virus) in Europe should whet the appetite for leaving the Middle Ages behind and using the new tools to conquer an old foe using vaccination?

February 14th 2011 ~ FMD "preventable and controllable by vaccination" says Hugh Pennington

In the BBC's Countryfile programme we saw an idealised look at what another FMD incursion might look like - but their fictionalised outbreak "began" in one single Leicestershire farm and spread to just one other. We heard a lot about immediate movement bans, quick sample testing (by motor cycle courier to Pirbright) and "tracing". However, farmers' immediate reactions on Twitter showed they did not believe that things would be quite as neat and quick as was being implied.
CVO Nigel Gibbens said little of note - except to repeat the DEFRA mantra that it was the farmers' responsibility to keep FMD out by keeping a close lookout for clinical signs. ( How is it that DEFRA cannot see that by the time a farmer sees clinical signs the disease will be well and truly with us and a tangible sign that the government's responsibility to keep out the disease has disastrously failed?) How reassuring it would have been to hear that border and airport checks were of such a good calibre, ten years on, that nothing suspect would find it easy get through the net. This, unfortunately, is not the case. And it is two years ago now since the number of sniffer dogs was reduced down to nine. How many border checks have we now, exactly?
It was felt unfortunate that Mr Gibbens was not able to reassure those farmers that the Contingency Plan would make intelligible and immediate use of modern disease controls.
It would have been good to hear the views of a virologist, since FMD is a virus - but at least Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Aberdeen and the BBC's favourite pundit on any pathogen, came out very strongly in favour of vaccination. He even referred to the 2001 policy as "panic measures" adding that FMD was both preventable and controllable.

February 13th 2011 ~ On Monday evening, BBC "Inside Out" looks at FMD policy ten years on.

Moira Linaker in Cumbria will be interviewed on the programme in that area; she simply and flatly refused to allow her sheep to be touched - but the price she paid was high. She is briefly quoted by the BBC here
Part of the programme in the South West will also be devoted to FMD ten years on - but although the Radio Times says the programme will ask "whether the region is prepared for a recurrence of foot-and-mouth disease", its current webpage suggests that this will be only a very brief part of the 30 minute programme - perhaps some light can be shed on this by a Tweet on Sunday night in answer to a question about whether the BBC South West's Inside Out programme was only on that regional channel:
"... after the extraordinary events of DEFRA trying to stop an interview from being aired, I hope it'll go national."
BBC Inside Out can be seen on BBC One in the North East & Cumbria and the North West on Monday at 19.30 GMT. The programmes to be aired may reveal if the issue is still such a politically sensitive one as it was when, after the first few weeks of the disease in 2001, there was a virtual blackout of news about the horrific events actually happening across the country.

February 12th 2011 ~ What can we tell the Japanese?

The Japanese want to learn from our experience of foot and mouth. After several emails exchanged with a Japanese researcher for an upcoming television programme there about foot and mouth in Miyazaki (where almost the whole prefecture suffered from the outbreak of FMD in 2010) one question received yesterday seems to sum up the whole dilemma:
"(How) is it still culling the first operation once it's confirmed? Can you think of any other reasons apart from trading time issues why the government is reluctant to take the vaccination as their first operation?"
As is implied, it is extraordinary that a trading consideration that affects only those who export is able to force on the entire rural population a wasteful and unethical slaughter policy.
A slaughter policy means that vastly more uninfected animals are slaughtered than animals actually infected - and its costs in terms of distress can hardly be quantified.
In addition, how can one justify to the Japanese the UK's continuing refusal to mention in their Contingency Plan the state-of-the-art rapid sensitive molecular techniques based on PCR to detect the virus RNA? How can such a useful and accurate tool, (for example the Bioseeq portable equipment demonstrated at the FMD conference in Melbourn in April), which is used in monitoring and detecting pre-clinical infection in blood of cattle for example, be not only ignored but its effectiveness actually denied by DEFRA? Foot and Mouth is not a Dark Ages disease yet few seem concerned that its control - even a decade after the UK was turned into a chaotic war zone of mass killing - is still largely medieval. FMD is on the march in Asia and has infected roaming wildlife in Turkey and Bulgaria. Worryingly, the researcher's last email contained this ominous last sentence:
".. I just saw the news now that there is suspicion of FMD in Japan again. It is still the first brief news on the net and as yet it is suspicion only..."
(The researcher is getting in touch with farmers who suffered in 2001 or 2007. Please contact warmwell if you would be prepared to exchange emails with the researcher. The suspected FMD in Japan was in fact negative.)

February 11th 2011 ~ North Korea finally admits that foot and mouth is affecting 8 of its provinces

Although we have been aware of FMD in North Korea since January 19th (see below) the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) has finally confirmed that the disease broke out in Pyongyang at the end of 2010 and since spread to eight other provinces. However, unlike the desperate waste taking place in South Korea, we understand that the North Koreans are using their animals as meat when they are slaughtered - which in the absence of the better modern control methods - is the sensible and safe way of disposing of the carcasses. The serotype causing the outbreak in both South and North Korea is Type O. (FMDV O SEA topotype, Mya-98 lineage)

February 11th 2011 ~ "We have to look hard at what kind of farmers we are defending," says English MEP

The screening yesterday of Tracy Worcester's "Pig Business" in the EU Parliament was, in her words, "to show MEPs that the cheap food that they are delivering for constituents isn't cheap at all".
"If factory scale farming was made to pay the true costs of its production systems, then small family run farms would actually be more competitive in the market place."
José Bové said factory farming is putting animal welfare and human health "second to the cult of profit". MEP Linda McAvan said she was shocked to find out that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development had helped to part-fund Smithfield's expansion into Poland and suggested that perhaps many policymakers didn't realise that they were actually supporting factory farming and export subsidies for big industrial producers. "We have to look hard at what kind of farmers we are defending," she said. See trailer to the film on YouTube and a full report on the EU Parliament screening here and see also posting below

February 10th 2011 ~ BVA warns of the return of foot and mouth is only "one holiday away"

The BVA president Harvey Locke is quoted in today's Farmers Guardian:
"This month marks ten years since the major outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease in the UK in 2001. Right now Bulgaria and Turkey are battling an outbreak along their shared border and, as someone remarked to me recently, we are now just one holiday away from bringing the disease back into this country."
In the presence of Caroline Spelman at the BVA Dinner he spoke of the "serious issues that must be addressed when the Government reports back on the exercise"
"...the role of vaccination, the quality of communication channels and the adequacy of existing tracing systems."
Read in full.

February 10th 2011 ~ Where are the vets to come from?

The BVA are rightly concerned that
" the announcement that the cap on tuition fees will be raised to between 6 and 9 thousand pounds a year could have a huge impact on the decisions of A-level students, "with fewer and fewer opting for an expensive veterinary science degree."
Veterinary students of the future will graduate with at least £45,000 of debt in tuition fees alone. The BVA says,
"Faced with these levels of debt, our concern is that those who do make it to graduation won't opt for the food animal practice and public health roles that attract smaller pay packages. We need to think carefully about how we can secure the future provision of large animal practitioners."
See also below.
With fewer and fewer large animal vets - and with such warnings as TB testing going out to tender (here) the question is a glaring one: Where are all the vets to come from if the UK continues to prevaricate on vaccination in a major foot and mouth crisis? Our desperate search in 2001 resulted in an army of foreign vets, able to leave their countries at short notice but few if any of whom had any experience of FMD. They found that their job was killing. When FMD arrives again - as undoubtedly it will - the gamble being played by our lack of proper preparation will have terrible consequences. Lessons learned? Not yet.

February 07, 2011 ~ FMD has been found at South Korea's largest breeding farm

joongangdaily.joins.com
"Thirteen pigs were confirmed Saturday to have foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) at Korea's largest breeding farm - the Department of Animal Resources Development in Cheonan, South Chungcheong - which provides sperm from high-quality livestock to farms nationwide, the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said yesterday. There are currently 350 cows, 1,650 pigs and 13,430 poultry (chicken and ducks) at the facility, the ministry said... "
Vaccination came too late to prevent infection at that farm and the spokesman talks of his frustration.
We will go on and on saying it - if South Korea had chosen to vaccinate at the beginning of the outbreak we would not be witnessing the collapse of their livestock industry, a serious food shortage, and the grief of thousands of Koreans. Now there are fears that some burial sites were hastily chosen and could subside, releasing the virus and other toxins into the environment again. The ProMed comment on the latest outbreak is interesting:
"...it seems that the authorities decided to cull the (13?) clinically affected pigs, while re-vaccinate all remaining pigs (and cattle?) on the farm ("Vaccinate-to-live"). Confirmation will help. In case confirmed, this strategy has become feasible by South Korea's decision to move into mass vaccination policy, enabling selective culling ('modified stamping out'). Such policy may enable the preservation of breeding animals of high genetic value."
And if anyone is still in doubt as to what mass killing or "stamping out" can be like, read - if you have the stomach to do so - what a tough ex-soldier wrote about Great Orton in Cumbria. This is factual - and is somewhat different in tone to yesterday's piece on BBC Countryfile.
The UK's stance on vaccination - like that of South Korea in November and Bulgaria even now - is still equivocal.

February 6th 2011 ~ BBC's Countryfile visits the grief of 2001 Cumbria - and fails to point out that the sheep killed at Great Orton were uninfected

After ten years of hoping for both scientific rigour and common sense to inform future foot and mouth policy, it was more than distressing to hear the bland tones of the Countryfile presenter on the subject of Great Orton in Cumbria. As we wrote on this website about Great Orton:
" It will be remembered that 451,000 sheep (four hundred and fifty one thousand) were slaughtered at Great Orton. 5786 animals from 115 farms were tested between the 7th and 23rd of April 2001. This was not gentle euthanasia but a messy scramble to kill terrified sheep and lambs as quickly as possible. One farm had a positive test (not active virus but antibody positive) on 9 sheep. One farm had 2 sheep with what Andrew Hayward (DVM Cumbria) termed "mild" positive results. Three farms were inconclusive. All the rest, 110 farms, returned negative results. There were no clinical signs on any of the sheep slaughtered at Gt Orton."
Countryfile called the Nature Reserve at Great Orton
"a monument to the victims of this terrible disease."
No, BBC. The sheep, many pregnant or with lambs at foot, were not victims of disease. They were victims of a despicable, ignorant policy, based on flawed science and politicians anxious about the Election. As a former president of the RCVS, Bob Michell, said:
" It is not as if we do not know whose responsibility it was: according to the Anderson Inquiry, ".. the Prime Minister, was in personal charge ... he always saw himself in overall charge". Sounds very much like openness and transparency to me: all we now lack is accountability. .."
With Anthony Gibson we can only wonder why vaccination was rejected in favour of the trade profits for the few and why DEFRA even now will say only that they will "consider" vaccination rather than urgently to put modern disease control technology firmly at the forefront of any contingency plan.

February 6th 2011 ~ Well done Staffordshire for promoting local food for the 2012 Olympics

Splendid, brief YouTube video from Staffordshire and Cheshire - and although it is particularly about hoping to produce food for the Olympics, the promotion of local food is becoming more and more important at a time when long "just in time" supply lines could be disrupted by the credit implosion and so many other variables. Unless we foster local supply - even if it is more expensive than cheap imports - we may find that our shelves and fridges become empty. . Incidentally, it was nice to see the Women's Food and Farming delegation outside DEFRA (1.35 into the video) saying
"We're here outside the Ministry of Food (sic) and we've been to see the Minister, Caroline Spelman, to talk about food, the Olympics, TB, Land Army, and Chinese lanterns, and we think we've had a fantastic time because the Minister spent time and listened to us for over an hour."
Anything positive about DEFRA is a rare pleasure to report.

February 6th 2011 ~ " The images of what went on, they will live with me forever..."

Saturday's Farming Today looked back again at the foot and mouth crisis of 2001. Its opening remarks were highly controversial since there has never been any official recognition of how the virus got to the UK nor how long it had been rippling through sheep flocks before it got to the Waugh farm, yet Charlotte Smith said:
"the source of the outbreak was a pig unit in Northumberland where it's believed infected meat had got into poorly cooked swill. Now, the disease went unnoticed so by the time it was spotted in Essex it was incubating on another 50 farms..."
but at least the interviewer of a Dartmoor farmer had the sensitivity to apologise to the farmer - who admitted candidly that ten years had made no difference to the difficulty of even talking about it - for bringing him back up to the site where his animals had been burnt after they had been shot as contacts (Ms Smith was not aware, it seems, that the "contiguous cull" had been invented only as a result of the infamous and flawed mathematical model that set in motion such unnecessary carnage) The upbeat nature of the interview at the slaughter and burial mounds at Great Orton may have struck many as inappropriate - even if the site is now a Nature Reserve. What the recording does show, however, is the depth of the trauma that 2001 brought to so very many people and the difficulties of re-hefting flocks and simply getting back some feeling of normalcy.
Attempts to suggest that now all is well with the policy were considerably less convincing - as we find so disheartening after ten years with its dithering about vaccination and extraordinary complacency from the CVO about "negligible risk" from global travel and imports. (More and see also below)

February 4th 2011 ~ "the fact that vaccine is being used to control the disease may explain the current situation, and spread may be minimal." FMD Libya

ProMed comment on the FMD outbreak in Libya :
"The disease has not been reported to OIE since 2005. The fact that clinical signs are mild is a bit unexpected, if this is indeed a new incursion of foot and mouth disease in a country that has not seen the disease in several years, but the fact that vaccine is being used to control the disease may explain the current situation, and spread may be minimal..."

February 4th 2011 ~ And as for the results of NOT vaccinating? "farmers' suffering is just collateral damage"

we are reminded by email today:
"One mans loss is another mans gain.... "South Korea Epidemic Raises Chicago Hogs Prices"
It's beyond belief if you see how suppliers worldwide are smiling all over their greedy faces and hog-futures are up into the skies. Think about the money involved and you know why they try to prevent vaccination at all costs. It's bad for exporters and bad for importers....and farmers suffering is just collateral damage."
And will they still be grinning in Chicago if FMD arrives in the US? The United States is another country that thinks it is better to protect its outdated "FMD free without vaccination" trade status than its hard-pressed farmers, its food supply, its dwindling stocks of cattle and its national herds and flocks.

February 4th 2011 ~ Food supplies worldwide are sinking lower, prices are rising higher and credit has trickled away.

These are not times to gamble with our own UK food supply. (The EU, it seems, has woken up to the need to curb speculation). Hungry people are becoming desperate. As an emailer writes today:
" We can't afford to destroy valuable protein for the ever growing global population. If reports are true that 30% of food from farm to the supermarket is lost due to harvesting problems, transport and logistics failure etc and another 30% discarded by supermarkets and consumers for various reasons.. then there's not a lot left. Disease eradication that means animal killing is plain and simply, evil and wrong. That's a fact. That is not negotiable."
Ten years on - and we look back on the same failed gamble taken by the UK in more prosperous times as poor, unfortunate Korea took in November. The decision to vaccinate, taken a month later - too late to avoid having to vaccinate all livestock - meant that many vaccinates had already been infected.
FMD, very probably in roaming wildlife, is in poor areas of Bulgaria and the part of Turkey next to Greece - and as for the UK - whatever may be the bland pronouncements coming from the media, terrifyingly little has changed in the UK's preparations for its arrival here.

February 4th 2011 ~ "Disease eradication that means animal killing is plain and simply, evil and wrong. That's a fact. That is not negotiable."

South Korea has now killed and destroyed more than 2 million of its livestock. While officials there may seem as blandly unmoved as officialdom always seem to be, the people on the ground most certainly are not. An interview with Koreans who have been affected ( English transcript from www.arirang.co.kr) makes very distressing reading.
Because, in the absence of rapid on-site diagnosis, Korean samples had to be sent to Pirbright in Surrey at the start of the outbreak in November, valuable time was lost.
Because officials took the gamble that their (almost non existent) meat exports must be protected by non vaccination, it was the people in poor districts and their prized livestock whose lives were destroyed instead.

February 3rd 2011 ~ If we eat meat at all, we eat products from vaccinated animals

We recently received a message about meat from vaccinated products from an emailer who preferred to remain anonymous - but who thoroughly understands the science:
"The answers provided by Defra civil servants to so many of the relatively simple written parliamentary questions must surely cause the Ministers to squirm with embarrassment when they deliver them. It is now well known that
1. Vaccination leaves no residues (unlike some antibiotics/parasiticides/other chemicals etc etc)
2. If we eat meat, we eat products from vaccinated animals
3. If we consume dairy products, we are consuming products from vaccinated animals
4. It would appear to be simplicity itself to get these messages across to the public and the industry."
The writer added, "The current Ministers are collectively rather better than many who have gone before, so why don't they rise up and refuse to spout the garbage they are given to read out?"

February 3rd 2011 ~ Consider...

Mr Nigel Gibbens, Chief Veterinary Officer for England, on Farming Today:"We would consider vaccination from the very first day of a foot and mouth outbreak." So why has this statement not reassured us? Because "consider" has been the word used for years now to give reassurance - while allowing the government and the meat trade a let-out from setting out in detail how vaccination would swing into place from the very first confirmation of disease. And Mr Gibbens goes on to repeat the other mantra
"We have to balance the benefits .. a scenario where foot and mouth disease is moving towards a large number of livestock where you could deploy vaccination- a very strong case to set against the trade disadvantages of having to wait longer to prove that we're free again and it's a minimum of three months that we couldn't trade internationally and the costs of having to do blood tests and surveillance on all of the animals we vaccinated to prove that they hadn't been infected while vaccinated"
To "set against that" argument, we still have the humane voices of the disregarded ( Northumberland Report 1967/68 D36.Paragraph 175)
"We wish to make it clear at the outset that we are not among those who regard stamping-out [the slaughter policy] with complacency.. We sympathise with the widely expressed view that it is a crude and primitive way of dealing with a disease. We know what a harrowing duty it is for the officers of the Ministry who have to carry it out. We recognise the mental anguish it may cause to those who suffer its consequences, and the shattering disaster, not computable in terms of money, that it may bring to a farmer who has to see the work of a lifetime destroyed in a day."
The Report was professional, concise, humane and readable. It was written in language that everyone could understand and written nearly 50 years ago. At its heart was consideration for the farmers and their livestock who, it understood, had suffered in the outbreak of 1967.
One can only guess what such men would have thought of an FMD exercise such as DEFRA's recent "Silver Birch"exercise, where vaccination was rejected in favour of the trade profits for the few - what they would have thought of a Chief Vet who could continue to contemplate slaughter instead of vaccination; merely to "consider" vaccination rather than put the boon of modern disease control technology firmly at the forefront of any plan.

February 2nd 2011 ~ No one seems ever to have explained to contemporary policy makers that compulsory contiguous culling in 2001 was "as unnecessary as it was ineffective"

As an example of how communication failure between science and policy can be so disastrous, we need look no further than the mathematical model from Imperial College that elbowed its way into acceptance in March 2001 and set the hated contiguous cull of all susceptible animals in motion. The model's construction was so full of flaws that post hoc research has shown that the compulsory contiguous culling was "as unnecessary as it was ineffective" (Honhold and others 2004, Taylor and others 2004, Thrusfield and others 2005)
Bullet points here explain how and why this travesty happened. Vaccination should have been the obvious course to take as soon as FMD was acknowledged to be in the country. The fact that for so many illogical reasons it was not, left the government desperate for a policy to show they were, in the grisly parlance of the time, "bearing down on the disease". It took nearly a year, millions of wasted lives, billions of money and a trauma that leaves many farmers and vets, even today, simply unable to contemplate the idea that the policy was wrong and their distress was unnecessary.
Can we really not accept that vaccination should be the very first line of defence and drop the word "considered"?

February 1st 2011 ~ "If MrGibbens would like to contact me I will be pleased to tutor him on the basics. There is still time but not much."

An urgent message from the virologist Dr Colin Fink - who was, of course, involved in trying to help the government in 2001 (Read brief background) :
"The take home message from this morning's Farming today interview with the Chief Veterinary officer Nigel Gibbens, is that he does not understand anything about the science of vaccination and herd immunity. Awaiting the first case when the infection is moving across Europe is an incomprehensible view.
The infection needs to monitored and vaccination of all herds started BEFORE the infection reaches these shores. The economics of that (i.e. saving live stock, preserving genetic lines, saving livelihoods, saving the huge expenditure and distress of a slaughter policy - in case any one from DEFRA reads this and needs the explanation) is clear cut.
For the last 10 years I have worried about the competence of those who are employed by DEFRA. Evidently we are no farther forward. This incoherence 10 year on indicates that DEFRA have no vaccine policy acknowledging the science, and no one there who has an understanding of the advantages of vaccination for disease control. If MrGibbens would like to contact me I will be pleased to tutor him on the basics. - There is still time but not much."
Indeed, any interested party, at DEFRA or in the media, who chooses to take up Dr Fink's offer has only to contact this website to be put in touch with him. Like Dr Fink and others, after ten years of pursuing the truth about FMD policy, this website finds it both frustrating and alarming to see such a level of ignorance and complacency among those whose job it is to protect the country from foot and mouth.

February 1st 2011 ~ Charlotte Smith talking to Nigel Gibbens: "Isn't vaccination just something that would stay under constant review?"

You can Listen Again to Farming Today. Nigel Gibbens was asked by Charlotte Smith if, ten years on, the country would be better prepared for foot and mouth disease. "I think the country's well prepared. We have detailed contingency plans for foot and mouth disease..." (They are, unfortunately, unintellibible for most of the people who would want to check what is there.) The UK's Chief Veterinary Officer implied that the major difference in control policy would be swifter movement bans and an attempt to "keep the countryside open" as far as possible.
However, when pressed to talk about vaccination, he said
"We would consider vaccination from the very first day of an outbreak...we have to balance the benefits of vaccination in terms of possibly protecting large numbers of animals.
You can imagine a scenario where foot and mouth disease was moving towards an area where there are large numbers of livestock where you could deply vaccination. That's a very strong case to set against the trade disadvantages of having to wait longer to prove that we're free again - and it's a minimum of three months that we couldn't trade internationally, and the costs of having to do blood tests and surveillance on all of the animals we'd vaccinated to prove that they hadn't been infected whilst vaccinated"
MrGibbens' words suggests he is thinking of waiting until vast numbers of animals are vaccinated. This, as surely he must know, is happening now in South Korea where the gamble to delay vaccination was taken for the same reasons as those given by MrGibbens - and taken far too late. As Charlotte Smith pointed out, South Korea's outbreak is now set to spread across Asia. (Even more ironically, the policy in Korea is based on the wrong presumption that "Free without vaccination" is beneficial for a country that "has traditionally been predominantly an importer, not exporter of animals and their products". The moderator's final comment implies this in the Promed posting of Jan 30th.

February 1st 2011 ~ The CVO did not explain that the figure of "3 months"

The CVO did not explain that the figure of "3 months" is the arbitary 3 month export trading disadvantage imposed on vaccination by the EU rules - that are themselves based on those the OIE admits are not mandatory and show no scientific or veterinary basis "thanks to the scientific progress in vaccinology and diagnostic methods".
We would draw attention again to the words of Dr Vallat below where he wrote, just days ago,
"..the OIE aspires to offer alternative recommendations to stamping out as a means of disease control wherever possible. The use of vaccination is more and more relevant thanks to the scientific progress in vaccinology and diagnostic methods..trade standards have proven to be effective in halting the international spread of FMD through trade...these standards are not mandatory and cannot be imposed by the OIE. It is up to the sovereign rights of each Member to determine which measure and how they will be applied."
As for the testing regime after an outbreak, if vaccination is used swiftly and applied in a ring around the first sign of disease- and from the outside inwards to stop the disease in its tracks - the number of vaccinated animals can be reduced to a minimum.

January 31st 2011 ~ "Clearly a heightened risk": Anthony Gibson on Farming Today. (And 3rd infected village found in Bulgaria)

"I think the one lesson we haven't learned is that we're not in any better position now to use vaccination as against slaughter to deal with an outbreak than we were in 2001..." Since the interview with the former Director of the South West region NFU on BBC Farming Today about the UK's present readiness for an outbreak of foot and mouth, another focus of FMD has been found in Bulgaria. This part of Bulgaria is very much wild boar country. It appears that the animals have been tested for antibodies only and one wonders if these positive results could be old infection. The village of Gramatikovo is about 6 miles or so from Kosti and Rezovo. As the ProMed moderator says, "it will be interesting to note if the identification of the reported cases has been initially based on clinical findings or on serological tests"
At /www.novinite.com We read:
"All animals susceptible to FMD in the village of Gramatikovo will have to be killed....The movement of animals through Gramatikovo has been completely forbidden; there are also limitations on the movement of persons."
Once again we must ask about the movement of wild boar. Roaming wild boar do not know they are "forbidden" or "limited". As Anthony Gibson said this morning on Farming Today when asked how well protected is the UK against foot and mouth arriving here
"Well I don't think we're any better protected than we were ten years ago.."
(It will be the CVO Nigel Gibbens' turn to be interviewed on Farming Today tomorrow.)

January 31st 2011 ~ "... these standards are not mandatory and cannot be imposed by the OIE" Dr Bernard Vallat

Even an expert such as Anthony Gibson (see below) has not fully understood the implications of the rules assumed to be set in stone by the OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health in Paris). A letter sent on the 19th January this year from the Director General of the OIE, Dr Bernard Vallat, made things clearer. In response to the letter (pdf) from the European Livestock Association, Dr Vallat wrote:
"..the OIE aspires to offer alternative recommendations to stamping out as a means of disease control wherever possible. The use of vaccination is more and more relevant thanks to the scientific progress in vaccinology and diagnostic methods..trade standards have proven to be effective in halting the international spread of FMD through trade…..Nevertheless, these standards are not mandatory and cannot be imposed by the OIE, it is up to the sovereign rights of each Member to determine which measure and how they will be applied."

January 31st 2011 ~ "And yet it was the NFU leadership, wasn't it that was very much against the use of vaccination back in 2001? "

From the transcript of this morning's interview with Anthony Gibson on BBC Farming Today:
"I disagreed with that at the time... the public had had enough of seeing images of vast numbers of animals being incinerated on huge pyres; they were sickened by it. They knew that vaccination was available as an alternative and they couldn't understand why the farming community wasn't using that - or why the government rather wasn't using that. And don't forget that animals were slaughtered at a cost of billions of pounds in that outbreak - and most of that could have been avoided had we used vaccination. .."
And Mr Gibson went on to say:
" I don't think we're any better protected than we were ten years ago. ... the pattern of disease around the world over the last few months has been actually very similar to the pattern of disease in the run-up to the 2001 outbreak... I think DEFRA would be wise at the very least to look at the precautions we've got in place at the moment and saying "Are we doing enough to protect ourselves from what is clearly a heightened risk?".."
(Transcript)

January 31st 2011 ~ "Spelman goes down to the woods - and gets a big surprise" Geoffrey Lean

Geoffrey Lean's blog today:
"....No doubt some Westminster rodent has told her to cut her losses. But she may not find a way out. " Read in full
Many will have heard with amazement the attempt by Caroline Spelman on the Today Programme (See our transcript) to persuade the public that the proposed sell off of woodland is owing to a "conflict of interest" perceived in the Forestry Commission ( which has, as John Humphrys says, "been doing a reasonable good job since it was set up nearly a century ago") It might have been more honest to admit, as James Paice did to the House of Lords in November (Uncorrected Minutes), that DEFRA wants to look for
"ways of improving commercial returns…from leisure and other, currently unprofitable, activities."
It might have been uncomfor