Scottish Farmers Anger at Biosecurity Failures
UK - Scotland’s farming community is reacting with anger to the official reports today which outline serious biosecurity lapses at the facility that appears to have caused the 2007 foot and mouth outbreak; an outbreak that has cost farmers millions of pounds.
10 September 2007
2 minute read
Scotland’s farmers are struggling to contemplate how a government facility, established to help protect us from disease, looks to have unleashed one of the most infectious animal diseases on earth.
NFUS President Jim McLaren
Reacting to the publication of further reports into the disease security at the government-licensed facility at Pirbright, Surrey, NFUS President Jim McLaren said:
“The shock of facing a second foot and mouth outbreak in six years has been overtaken by anger. Scotland’s farmers are struggling to contemplate how a government facility, established to help protect us from disease, looks to have unleashed one of the most infectious animal diseases on earth.
“I give credit to the authorities for their efforts once the disease was spotted. But the inescapable fact is that it should never have appeared in the first place. Our livestock and red meat industry was already struggling with profitability before it was thrown into this crisis five weeks ago. This outbreak has needlessly cost our members millions of pounds.
“I know lawyers will now be poring over this report and we will be looking very carefully at the legal options in front of us.
“I don’t believe the UK Government acted on the lessons of the 2001 outbreak; our controls on illegal meat imports still lag well behind countries like the US and New Zealand. Worse still, the UK Government has lectured farmers about biosecurity since then – those lectures now have a painful irony.
“Farmers will not accept a similarly complacent attitude in response to this outbreak. If as much time was spent on preventing disease outbreaks, as discussing strategy for, and costs of, dealing with them, we could avoid these kinds of animal welfare and economic disasters.”
