A number of you will have seen the discussion happening in another area of the forum about government plans for cost sharing when it comes to animal disease outbreaks. The discussion is probably best left to continue there, but here is a Farmers Weekly survey to help gain more views on the proposals being worked on by the authorities. If you look below the title of the post, you will see an attachment which if you open and save to your own computer - fill out by underlining or bolding your answers and then save  - you can then email back to me.

Isabel - FW Community editor

as the Zanu PF representative said of western governments only last week, Defra can go hang a 1000 times.

Quite frankly, until they show evidence of actually listening to farmers and ignoring spurious 'stakeholders' from outside of the industry and with no economic interest, we should refuse to cooperate.

Can I ask what do you mean by 'refuse to co-operate'? What sort of thing would you refuse to do/talk about with DEFRA?

Well, the NFU have already said they would back off from the discussions on cost sharing as a result of the BTB announcement.  I would suggest that as an industry we adopt a policy of non-cooperation across the board.  We are facing increasing requirements from bureaucrats, supposedly to help control disease, such as EID.  Most in the industry agree these are disproportionate and costly.  What we have to do is to combine the Gallic approach of direct action with simply not implementing what they require.  What will the authorities actually be able to do if every sheep farmer refused to adopt the EU EID system (I'm not saying those who already use EID should stop, just don't participate i nthe oficial process)?  What if we all go out removing badgers?  I'm not actually advocating that, but just making the point that en-masse they simply don't have the resources in rural areas to arrest us all.

Ultimately if the government is really serious about solving the supposed foor crisis they have to get real about supporting farmers not weighing them down.

At a personal level, some of this is easier for me as I farm without any subsidies so they don't have that particular stick to hold over my head.  But I think farmers in general must wake up and shake off that fear.

A campaign of non-cooperation by individual farmers could include:

- never filling in official surveys, etc.

- never being available when officials call (either in person or by phone)

- not submitting paperwork such as movement forms

- closing down the countryside, including every footpath, etc. across farming properties

Sure some of it's illegal and some sailing pretty close to the wind, but such a campaign with a large percentage, or indeed majority, of farmers and sympathetic landowners joining in would be very hard to police.