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The New York Times
Try telling that to John Morris, a farmer here who outwitted the disease
until the morning of July 13, when he noticed with a jolt that one of his
cows was unsure on her feet and drooling excessively, classic signs of
foot-and-mouth. A veterinarian confirmed his hunch. The next day, a team of
professional slaughterers came to the farm and shot dead his entire herd —
280 organically treated sheep and 19 cattle.
Or try telling his neighbors, who have suddenly found themselves in the
center of one of the worst new clusters of the disease to strike Britain
this summer. In the last two weeks, 15 new cases have been confirmed here,
and 13,000 animals on 55 farms have been destroyed.
Now there are fears for the hills, where sheep have bloodlines going back
more than 2,000 years and are hefted, meaning that they have learned down
the generations how to stay within the unfenced boundaries of their spot on
the hillside. Tens of thousands of sheep graze there, and farmers say their
biggest fear is that they will all have to be slaughtered.
And so people are recognizing that the elation of victory was premature and
the disease is continuing its willful and unpredictable journey through the
British countryside.
The government itself concedes that it will be months before Britain is
free of foot-and-mouth. Three new cases a day are still being identified,
on average. More than three and a half million animals from 8,998 farms
have been slaughtered. More are still waiting to be culled.
The cost to Britain's economy — to the farming and tourist industries, and
ancillary businesses — is estimated at £1.2 billion, or $1.7 billion, so
far. The eventual cost, the government says, is likely to be £2.3 billion.
Movement of animals except by special license is forbidden in most parts of
the country; the export markets are still closed; and many farmers are
still virtually isolated on their land.
The disease, which strikes cloven- hoofed animals like sheep, cows, goats
and pigs, is rarely fatal but can debilitate animals and makes them unfit
for market. Although foot-and- mouth is endemic in parts of Asia, South
Africa and South America, it was absent from Britain for 20 years before
the current outbreak. European Union regulations require member countries
with cases of foot- and-mouth to stop exporting animals until the disease
has been wiped out.
Why has foot-and-mouth disease dug in this way, despite the government's
predictions? In part, said David Tyson, president of the British Veterinary
Association, it has become clear in hindsight that the disease was already
inexorably spreading through the countryside when the first case — at a
slaughterhouse in Essex — was announced by the government on Feb. 21.
"We effectively had 96 separate disease starting points by the time it was
disclosed that the pigs in the abattoir had come down with it," Mr. Tyson
said. "The pigs there gave it to sheep about seven kilometers away, and the
sheep had been transported around for between two and three weeks before we
knew they had the disease. There were 20,000 of them, and they went
everywhere. That's been the real horror, and that's what's made all the
work a catch-up job ever since."
That's where officials had to start. But farmers blame the disease's
continued spread on the government, arguing that its policy of refusing to
vaccinate healthy animals — on the grounds, in part, that vaccinated
animals are ineligible for export — has clearly failed. The government
blames the farmers and other rural workers, saying they are neglecting to
disinfect themselves and their equipment properly against foot- and-mouth
disease.
"It's been spread by movements of people and vehicles and machinery," said
Paula Harrington, a spokeswoman for the Department for the Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs. To prevent what would be a disastrous blow to
Britain's pig industry, she said, the government recently designated a
section of North Yorkshire a so-called Biosecurity Intensification Area,
meaning the farmers there are subject to tougher movement and disinfection
regulations.
Among other things, government inspectors are being stationed on milk
tankers that collect milk from dairy farms, to make sure the drivers
properly disinfect the trucks before and after each visit. Farmers are also
required to remove clothes they wear when handling livestock if they intend
to leave their property.
"These restrictions were voluntary, and clearly they didn't work," Ms.
Harrington said. "Now they're mandatory."
Farmers like Mr. Morris are bitter about the implications of the
government's accusations, saying that it is the government workers — the
inspection teams, the haulers who transport the carcasses, the disinfection
crews — who flout the regulations, allowing blood and urine from infected
animal carcasses to seep out onto busy roads, for example.
There is no question that the farmers here take the disease seriously. In
agreeing to discuss their situation, for instance, Mr. Morris and his
nearest neighbors, Gillian and Phillip Bromwell, arranged to meet by the
side of the road, just past the sign on the Bromwells' fence warning of the
foot-and-mouth restrictions.
When they were joined by a fourth farmer, Edwin Harris, it became clear how
strange their lives had become. They could not meet at any of their houses,
they said, because of fears of spreading the disease. Nor did they feel
comfortable going to a nearby pub, or even — when it became cold and damp —
sitting together in Mr. Morris's car. As a result, the whole conversation
took place next to the road. It was the first time in weeks that Mr. Morris
had seen the Bromwells, though he lives right next door.
Since his animals came down with foot-and-mouth, he said, he has felt like
a pariah. "I don't want to go into Crickhowell," he said, referring to the
town that is just up the road, "in case people say, `I don't want to touch
him.' "
What jars most here these days is the eerie silence in a place that usually
resounds with the gruff bleating of sheep. Now there is just wind, and
traffic — mainly from government vehicles connected with the huge killing,
cleanup and transporting operation.
All around, businesses are floundering. At Llanwenarth House, a hotel in a
16th-century manor in nearby Govilon, a "for sale" sign sits outside, and
the hotel, usually full this time of year, stands nearly empty. The hotel
has been run for more than 20 years by Bruce and Amanda Weatherill;
business has been so bad since foot-and-mouth struck that they can no
longer sustain it.
While farmers whose animals have been slaughtered are being compensated by
the government, there has been no compensation for other businesses, like
hotels, stores or pubs. In a region dependent on tourism, that has hit
Wales especially hard. "The government doesn't seem particularly interested
in the countryside," Mr. Weatherill said.
It is a view that many of his neighbors share. So does the opposition
Conservative Party, which has the fervent support of many rural Britons,
though it has failed so far to transform countryside outrage into effective
political capital.
Mr. Bromwell, Mr. Morris's neighbor, said he felt from the beginning that
Mr. Blair was putting too positive a spin on what has turned out to be a
drawn-out epidemic. "Politicians don't like bad news around election time,"
he said. "Anybody on the ground can see what's really happening."
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