The government in all its wisdom is considering moving the national foot and mouth lab from an island off of New York to Manhattan Kansas.  I am doing my level best to persuade our local powers that be to oppose this.  Can someone give me a rough outline of how long the movement restrictions went on, how long before animals could be slaughtered, an idea of how much the outbreak cost UK farmers totally, and anyone who might share individual costs either through a PM, email or post would be appreciated.  Anyone out there think it is a smart idea for them to put this lab in the heart of US cattle country????  It is going to create 500 new jobs, for Kansas, that is all any of the elected knotheads can talk about.  One lone newspaper editor, Patrick Kelley of the Emporia Gazette, spoke out against it in an editorial a few months ago.  He is usually too liberal for me, but he asked the right question, why put this where it can do the most harm if something goes wrong, no one bothered to answer him. 

The previous outbreak was in 2001, is that right?  6 million head slaughtered, correct?  At one time in the last outbreak I read about the government planning to shoot 1 million sheep in the hill country that were out of feed, what happened there??

Oh dear Kansas, sounds like your powers that be are looking for undercover ways to destroy US livestock farming, just as our government is here. Keep your voice heard!

So somebody tell me how long the movement restrictions were in place last summer, and were they nationwide?  Anyone have any opinions on what would be wrong with the USA and UK doing research together?  Last I knew, we had troops fighting together, we are supposed to be allies.  This new lab is going to cost a fortune, I cannot remember how much, I think I would give a fraction of that to you guys and let you do the research, or go together and build one on an island somewhere. This deal has me up in arms, and the really scary part is, most Kansas stockmen don't see much wrong with it, probably because most of them have no idea what happened in the UK either last summer or in 2001.  They know you had F and M, but I don't think they realize how hard it hits those who don't get it. 

       Kf; what if you give us an email address to the most influential newspaper in Kansas and we can all write emails to them saying we have heard about this new lab and how stupid we think this decision is with our reasons. ( I'm going off for a few days tomorrow so I don't know if I will be near a computer for a while).

Ally R has a great idea KF and like him I will make a special effort to get to the Examiner if that is your recommended newspaper. As to the problems and numbers involved we shall have to dig out old FWI reports (can Isabel help) and dredge our memories. I think the 2001 and one outbreak resulted in the death of 8 million animals and the total cost to the taxpayer was £750m. (but this is memory only)

Again from memory the whole episode ran from February until the following January and its ramifications resulted in the countryside being effectively closed to all country pursuits including walking, hiking, hacking etc. In addition agricultural shows throughout the land were dramatically affected as stock entries were virtually nil. There were instances of Ministry Marksmen firing wildly at sheep and cattle running loose in fields and huge piles of slaughtered cattle being doused in diesel and tyres and burned on farms.

A friend of mine had 800 sheep culled and a total of 240 cattle culled and burned. So silly did the whole thing get, that he was ordered to go around his barb wire fences with a flame thrower and burn off any wool left on the wire by sheep. As a result he had to replaced (and was paid to do it) 6 miles of four strand wire fence.

Dead stock was being transported around the country in unsealed lorries and there were many reports of people protecting their stock from the Ministry Officials. So annoyed was the government at this latter action that they have now passed laws which make it a criminal offence NOT to assist an official in any activity he/she deems essential in the control of your own lifestock, including their slaughter.

I must go now but I hope the above will remind others of things they can tell you about how Britain dealt with the last F&M outbreak.

PS. I don't mind being corrected by my peers, as I rushed to get this done just to get you started.

I think the idea has merit, the problem is that it is the farming community right now that seems to be being stupid over this, at least in my mind.  We are all being told there is just a miniscule risk. Part of it is the "cult of K-State" as I will call it.

 K- State in Manhattan Kansas is our landgrant college, where agricultural research is done for the state of Kansas. This lab will be put there.  Farmers all love K-State, people who went to KSU proudly have purple powercats(the Wildcat is the mascot) on everything they own, I even have one on a big stone out in my front yard.  Since K-State is going to house this, the farming community is so blinded by their faith in their alma mater that they think it is no big deal, that there is no way an accident could happen.  I believe the chance is small, but I cannot understand why farmers would want this anywhere near to them.  It will be about 80 miles from my farm, but there is one member of our community who goes to the Manhattan cattle auction all through the winter to buy cattle.  The scenario I describe is that the outbreak occurs about April 1st. We get quarantined down here because cattle have been brought in from Manhattan.  Our grass date is April 15-20.  Assuming we would have movement restrictions like you did, we are prevented from moving to grass, leaving us probably without feed trying to take care of cattle while our grass is empty.  Does that sound about right, would that be the way it would be handled in the UK??  I am assuming that unless my cattle actually get the disease, there will be no compensation for me feeding them for who knows how long. 

 The tornado that hit the campus brought another thought to mind, the organism will spread in the wind, won't it?  You don't get a much bigger wind than a tornado. 

Let me think about the idea, it might be the best to get my US Representative Jerry Moran to post on here, if he will.  He seems unconvinced I know anything at all about this, if I could be sure he would read your emails I would have you email him. 

Yes, it does spread in the wind as well as on any item that comes into contact with it. The movement restrictions are very strict. On suspicion of an outbreak, a control zone is put in place, banning movements of any description. Once confirmed, the whole country is shut down. Testing and culling follow, then when there have been no outbreaks for a set period ( i think it's 3 weeks ) the restrictions are gradually lifted. During restrictions there are no animal gatherings eg markets, shows, sales etc. The 2007 outbreak was not so severe because it was localised, and they knew exactly where it had come from, a leaky drain at the lab! so it can and does happen.

http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2007/10/02/106655/foot-and-mouth-disease-fmd-2007-surrey-outbreak-farmers-weekly-interactives-special.html

kansasfarmer:

Assuming we would have movement restrictions like you did, we are prevented from moving to grass, leaving us probably without feed trying to take care of cattle while our grass is empty.  Does that sound about right, would that be the way it would be handled in the UK??  I am assuming that unless my cattle actually get the disease, there will be no compensation for me feeding them for who knows how long. 

You are right in the points you make. In some areas there was no movement allowed except to slaughter and that only, by authorisation for specified numbers from specified departure and destination points. All animals tagged and recorded in quadruplicate. In other areas movement within the area was allowed but again only by special permit.

Feeding was a problem but you could ask the authorities to consider welfare cases.

There was no compensation except for stock loss, however if your farm was culled out and 'cleaned' the costs of that were borne by the Government Department at the time. MAFF.

At the beginning of the outbreak 'caused probably by the government's own scientists allowing pig swill to be processed at lower than previous temperatures for a shorter time,' compensation was slightly over the top but this fell as the numbers mounted. For example rare breed ewes for which we were getting £80 interbreed, were paid out at £120. and an £800 bull bought two week previous at market was compensated at £1500. However, overall farmers made huge losses and the disruption to routine and planning was dreadful.

Don't forget KF that the latest outbreak here (was it last year) was caused by mistakes at the Government's own laboratory. So, in a very real sense the two latest outbreaks have been as a result of malfunctions of the Government's own systems. Do not also forget that the Government is now trying to introduce some sort of scheme to make farmers pay for the so-called, public health aspects of animal health and that this may involve some sort of fee paying licence to allow you to keep stock.

They also said that the risk was minimal here but it still happened twice here last year when it came from a lab.

In 2001 our biggest problem moving the sheep home to get them in for the winter and lambing where the field were turning to a swamp which involved a lot of form filling to move them just straight across the road as we don't have a fax a friend of ours let used thiers they were shocked when a 5ft plus form came through. The biggest problem was getting the sheep in from the fields that were my grandads as although they were only 2 or 3 mins away in a vehicle they were on the allowed movement limit. As for slaughter we were basically limited to one abbatoir for a very long while and the price was very small compared to the price we had been getting, last year we were only getting between 30p/kilo deadweight and 40p/kilo deadweight which was a lot less that the previous year plus we then had a lot of charge came out of that as well that we lost between £5 and £10 a load.

I hope they don't mind me saying this but you could try Frank The Wool and Johnathan Long as both were heavily involved with the goings on and both we found indispencible last year both on BT and FMD.

Sam

(I am sorry about the pm but it seemed to go funny and acted up for me whether it so wasn't sure if you got it as all I started to get was a sudden load of dupilcates)

KF, last years Pirbright based outbreak was put down to a broken drain and partial flooding. Given your local weather's capacity for ripping buildings to shreds and flash flooding then I think your concerns are fully justified.

Funnily enough we carried an opinion piece on this very subject just last week. The irony is that the US's Plum Island is something that was spoken about as the example we should follow - particularly in 2001. I'll dig out some facts and figures and post them in another message.

Offshore and off our backs? by Stephen J Curtis

"Shabby and dilapidated" is how an independent review, headed by Dr Iain Anderson, has described the government-run Pirbright laboratory at the centre of last year's foot-and-mouth outbreak.  Bad regulation by Defra, among other organisations, has been blamed for the poor bio-security resulting in the catastrophic losses to farmers.

The report calls for a new body to run the laboratories in future, but given the scale of the problem is this the answer? And can we trust a government which is planning to cut its health and welfare budget by a reported £121 million?

I suggest not. We simply cannot risk another outbreak.  What we need to do is move the whole production of live foot-and-mouth vaccines to a safer, low risk area, such as an offshore island.

Now, having helped to bring much of the livestock industry to its knees, the government wants to offload some of the costs of future outbreaks of foot-and-mouth and other livestock diseases. 

Why should we pay for something over which we have no control?

An offshore island would take much of the risk away from the mainland.  There are plenty of locations to choose from, such as remote islands off the coasts of Wales and Scotland.

Such a move would have the advantage of bringing employment and economic development to an area of low income while safeguarding farmers' livelihoods.

Wouldn't it be costly?  Certainly - but not in relation to the cost of another serious outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.  The 1981 outbreak, for instance, was estimated to have cost over £8 billion. It has to be remembered that it is not just farming that's affected - the whole food chain and the massive tourist industry is also damaged.

The recent sky-rocketing price of wheat, due to a global shortage, has raised the spectre of food security - something which the government has been happy to ignore until now. We are now heavily dependent on food imports.  It can only be imagined what chaos disruption to domestic supplies would be caused by another serious outbreak of foot-and-mouth.

We need to remove this risk once and for all. The government should give serious consideration to moving the Pirbright lab off the mainland. While it is here it will still pose a risk. The authorities should then turn their attention to disease security - particularly illegal imports of ‘bush meat' and other meats from areas where foot-and-mouth is endemic. We are an island. We don't have foot-and-mouth unless it is imported.

Defra simply can't expect farmers to co-fund the control of diseases when this department is part of the problem.

• Stephen Curtis, who is chairman of ACMC Ltd, an international pig-breeding company based at Beeford, East Yorkshire, strongly believes that Britain should take advantage of its island status and make greater efforts to safeguard its animal health.