Summary
THE Government could face paying out huge amounts of compensation over foot and mouth. The outbreak is likely to cost the farming and food industry more than 500million, even if the disease is stamped out quickly. Farmers will see a loss in overseas sales worth some 15million a week with an export ban expected to last a minimum of three months. They also fear a related collapse in the price of meat, while the ban means farmers must also shoulder the extra expense of keeping and feeding animals which cannot be moved to market. If the outbreak is linked to an official Government site then the industry is likely to seek massive compensation payouts. The National Farmers' Union president, Peter Kendall, held emergency talks with Gordon Brown yesterday morning.
He pointed out the enormous difficulties faced by livestock farmers. Publicly the leaders of the NFU have welcomed the fact that Mr Brown has given the outbreak top priority. However there is mounting dissatisfaction with the way the Government is handling the crisis, in particular a belief that it encouraged the EU to impose a much more draconian ban on food exports than was necessary. The European Commission yesterday announced a total ban on the export of meat, milk products and livestock from mainland Britain. The Commission said it had initially offered to limit the ban to products from the region around the outbreak. However, it went further and labelled the whole of Great Britain as 'high risk' at the request of the Government. Richard Haddock, chairman of the NFU in the South- West, said: 'All the evidence now points to farmers having been shafted by their own Government.'See the full content of this document
Extract
Farmers to Fight for Compensation
He said farmers were only just r...
See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
