Food for Thought

A magazine for members of the trade union Prospect has just come across my desk and includes a rather funny story about government vets.

The article explains that Animal Health, the government agency which used to be called the State Veterinary Service, has banned staff from taking their dogs with them while working. The agency claims to be acting in the interests of animal welfare, after an incident in one of its car parks when a dog was spotted locked up on a hot day.

This has left vets like Teresa Excell with a huge problem. She's been taking her dog Muffin in the car with her for the past 11 years, but now she has to find someone to look after him during the day.

Prospect reports that the ban has so incensed some vets that they are on the verge of resigning and I can see why. If you can't trust a vet to look after an animal, who can you trust?

It's true. As is being widely reported pretty much everywhere, Foot & Mouth is back on a farm near Guildford.

The latest news on the Foot & Mouth outbreak in Surrey is available in the news section.

There are a couple of discussions on the FWispace as well.

There's no avoiding the horrible truth. Foot-and-mouth disease is back in the UK.

As you might expect Farmers Weekly readers are telling us they are shocked and disappointed. But they are completely supportive of the movement standtill put in place by DEFRA and feel that, this time, the government is acting fast and appropriately.

What the industry is praying for is that the case in Surrey is an isolated one - although, of course, that then raises questions about how the hell it got there. There are no swill users to blame this time around...

The fact it is in cattle, rather than pigs and sheep, is a good sign. The disease can be difficult to pick up in sheep and is a problem in pigs because they emit the disease more readily than other species.

What is interesting - actually make that infuriating - about this new foot-and-mouth outbreak is how a procession of 'experts' are being wheeled out to claim that it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for intensive farming.

This makes me angry for a number of reasons. For a start, these people seem to tar the whole UK industry with a brush that frankly I don't think exists. OK, I admit the poultry industry can get pretty 'intensive' but how do you apply that description to a field full of suckler cows or even a spacious shed full of beef cattle?

The livestock industry may have moved on from the days when you had 20 cows and a pig at the bottom of the garden. But some people seem convinced that farmers have embraced the dark side when it comes to animal husbandry. As someone who works in the industry and regularly visits farms, I suggest that it is mostly fantasy.

The second point that irritates me is the suggestion that foot-and-mouth wouldn't happen in more extensive systems. An infectious disease is an infectious disease. Animals aren't protected from it because they are reared with a bit more space. Have these people forgotten that the worst affected county in 2001 was Cumbria - a place of rolling hills and sheep grazing over vast tracts of land.

I can accept that livestock movements - of which there are certainly far more than there were 50 years ago - do make disease control much more difficult. But the rest, as far as I can see, is rubbish.

A farmer has written to the Warmwell website (always a good source of information about foot-and-mouth) pointing out that the Pirbright laboratory, now being linked with the outbreak of foot and mouth in Surrey, seems to be moving.

When the news broke on Friday night the concensus seemed to be that the farm and laboratory were about eight miles apart. But 36 hours later the laboratory now seems to be located two or three miles away.

Post by Debbie Beaton:

WAVERLEY Borough Council’s response to the foot and mouth outbreak in Surrey has been quick if my experience in Elstead this weekend is anything to judge by. I was there to celebrate my father’s 80th birthday at Elstead Mill with a large gathering from the village, which has a population of just under 6,000 including the village surrounds

A visit to the Spa shop on Saturday (August 4), which is central to Elstead and situated alongside the central green, had two doubled sided A4 pages on the Foot and Mouth situation compiled by Waverley Borough Council.

The information gave a clear picture on the current situation, describing the reasoning, actions and location of the Protection Zone and 10km Surveillance Zone. Then a Q and A tailored to Elstead residents followed. One of the questions posed was: “I’ve heard there is an outbreak at Elstead. Is this true?” The information sheet affirmed that the herd from the holding near Guildford originally came from Elstead, but that the original herd – although not infected – would be culled.”

It went on to tackle issues relevant to Elstead residents, such as dog walking, footpath access and the Cranleigh Show which went ahead but all the livestock classes were cancelled. The information sheet directed the local community to DEFRA for the most up to date information

Many of the guests at my father’s party live locally. Only a few guests knew that Elstead was at the centre of the foot and mouth outbreak, because this was where the original stock came from and that it was the Pride’s business. The response to the news was genuine shock and disbelief that it could be the Pride's livestock. Not least because many are regular customers of the Prides farm shop in Elstead.

At the stage we don’t know for definite if the current foot-and-mouth outbreak has been caused by the accidental release of the virus from Pirbright or the private lab next door - but it is looking like a strong possibility.

So I find this recent advert seeking a support worker at the Institute of Animal Health (Pirbright), which was dug out by a colleague of mine, pretty scary.

Bearing in mind how important it is to keep stocks of the foot and mouth virus contained you would have thought that only senior, experienced staff would have access to it.

But it looks like people on a salary of just £19,000/yr also get that privilege.

You've got to feel for farmer Roger Pride, who is not only dealing with the loss of his cattle herd due to foot-and mouth, he also also had to face the national media.

Mr Pride made his first and only public appearance at a press conference organised by the NFU earlier today and it must have been pretty intimidating. He's had no media training and suddenly he's faced with a bank of cameras and journalists with notebooks at the ready.

It is a situation that I hope other farmers won't have to deal with.

I've already talked about the statement given to the press by Roger Pride. Here it is in full:

Our business is D. Pride and partners. It was started by my parents Derrick and Sheila about 50 years ago and is now being carried on by myself and my wife Valerie. During that time we have built up what I hope and believe is a well run and respected family business.

The mainstay of our business is buying in store cattle at 6 months and over which we fatten for beef. We finish around 50 cattle a year and the beef is mainly sold through the farm shop.

We check our animals every day and it was when my father Derrick was with the cattle last Thursday that he noticed that some of them were off colour and drooling. He contacted me and asked me to come and have a look. This I did and it was immediately obvious that something was badly wrong. We contacted our vet straight away and he advised us to inform Defra. The Defra vet was on the farm within an hour and a half.

By this time it was late in the evening and getting dark, so the vet asked us to have the cattle penned by 5.30 the next morning for testing. Testing started at 6 am and continued until four in the afternoon. At that time, it was very far from clear that the animals were in fact suffering from FMD.

It was at about 7 that Defra Animal Health phoned to say that the tests were positive. For a moment, we couldn’t believe it. We were just completely shocked and devastated. It felt as if our whole world had been turned upside down.

There were 38 cattle in that group, with another group of 22 in the village and four more back on farm. All three groups were valued and humanely slaughtered on Saturday. Whilst we will be compensated for the market value of the cattle, there are the cleaning and disinfection costs to be resolved and our farming business will be closed down for many months.

Farmers have been saying for some days that there is no need for the media to keep showing 2001 pictures of burning pyres and dead animals being loaded into lorries.

So it's interesting to see Andrew Grant-Adamson saying much the same on his blog.

On the evidence so far, the Government has learned from the disaster of the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease but the media have not. TV reports — the story missed the early editions of the papers that we get in this part of the country — are played out against wallpaper of of the Stygian images of flames and smoke from pyres and carcasses suspended from cranes.

It is like deciding the pictures from a current war are not dramatic enough so we are using some from an earlier one.

In a interlude from this wallpaper in an ITN report we get a brief shot of the the chief vet who says there will be "no pyres, no burning of carcasses". Then it is back to film of pyres and their preparation. It is much the same on other channels.

Regular readers of this blog will perhaps have noticed the lack of photographs in recent days.

The reason for this is Farmers Weekly's self-imposed ban on going out onto farms because of the foot and mouth outbreak.

Just thought I'd let you know.

WHEN dread livestock disease foot and mouth led last Friday’s Ten O’Clock News Farmers Weekly journalists knew it would be no ordinary weekend – not for farmers, not for farming and not for farm journalists either.

For many it was an unwelcome rewind to March 2001 and the devastating foot and mouth epidemic that followed, claiming 7m animals, costing the UK £8bn and forcing many farmers from the industry.

Within half an hour a core team of FW journalists was hard at work, establishing facts and loading information onto the FWi web-site. Our new FWiSpace on-line forum was used to field questions from worried farmers. Journalists chased contacts until well after midnight.

First thing Saturday the team reconvened in FW’s south London newsroom. Newsgathering

Farming’s a tough industry, full of tough people. You have to be to cope with the ups and downs. Feed wheat at £130/t and foot and mouth, in the same week! Drought stricken crops in April and a deluge in July! Most people would simply give up.

But the great thing about farming is that tough people grapple with tough times and succeed. The only worry is that tough people are getting worn down by people who seem to lack commitment, who have jobs that are 9-5, who invest no personal equity in their occupations. All too often they seem to clash horrifically with the enthusiasts who invest everything in doing the job properly.

Maybe that helps explain the frustration welling up in farmhouses across the land, as the inability of government agencies.......

FW senior arable reporter Andrew Blake reflects on the wider implications of the foot and mouth outbreak:

One side effect of the latest foot and mouth outbreak is that it highlights the vulnerability of all farming businesses, not just livestock enterprises, to disease.

This year’s rust epidemics in cereals caught many growers, and dare one say even pathologists, by surprise.

So it is perhaps timely to ask just how much is being done to defend us from the use of diseases and pests as terrorist weapons.

Unexpected infections and insect attacks make it all the more important that research into breeding resistance to the widest range of crop diseases and pests is fully maintained.

And any notion that the pesticide defences available against them should be unjustifiably watered down by well-intentioned but misguided environmental concerns must be quashed.

It is imperative that everyone involved in agriculture strives to retain the fullest armoury and uses lateral thinking to out-wit those who wish to disrupt western societies by threatening food supplies.

Here at Farmers Weekly we get loads of requests from TV production companies to help them find farmers who might be willing to appear on screen.

I don't know what the fascination is with farmers, but it seems that everyone from Wife Swap to How Clean is Your House think they would make ideal candidates for their shows.

The latest of these requests to hit my inbox is this one:

The hit Channel 4 make-over show 10 Years Younger is looking for lively men and women to take part in a brand new series. So if you feel you’ve wrinkled before your time then get in touch with our team of anti-aging experts. We can help peel back the years and restore you to your former glory. Call NOW on 0121 224 8381 or download an application from www.channel4.co.uk/10yearsyounger

But after the stress of the last ten days, thanks to foot-and-mouth, I reckon this one is quite well-timed.

The egg sector is only five years away from the 2012 EU cage ban, which will see 280 million hens re-housed in alternative systems such as free range and enriched cages.

So it was surprising to receive a press release today from a group of European research institutes outlining a new £3.1m (€4.6m) EU project looking into whether eggs produced in alternative systems have a lower hygienic quality. It will also develop new approaches to improve microbial safety in these alternative production systems.

This is because the move to alternative systems has raised fears of a resurgence of food-borne infections because of possible contact between eggs and litter, which can contain pathogens.

It is due to report in three years time, which only leaves two years to implement any measures if needed. So does this mean the new cage rules are not based on science, as many in the industry have for long suspected?

Surely this work should have been carried out years ago. New rules that aim to improve bird welfare could in fact have an impact on egg quality.

A favourite on the FWi website is the Wrecker's Yard section - a place where disasters with farm machinery are celebrated in style.

There have been some great ones over the past couple of years - we've seen a combine harvester on its end rather than on its wheels and a tractor submerged in a pond.

But this new one of a mangled Massey Ferguson in Canada probably beats them all. Apparently the hydraulics on the loader failed which meant the bucket dug into the ground and the tractor was projected up into the air as if it was playing leapfrog.

Amazing.

Interesting story in today's Guardian about an Australian farmer who went looking for love on the internet and almost paid the ultimate price.

By senior arable reporter Andrew Blake:

After everything that has been achieved via the Voluntary Initiative, the latest Brussels proposals to tighten pesticide use are particularly unwelcome.

It’s hard to dismiss the suspicion that they have been drawn up by people with only limited understanding of the vital role that pesticides play in most modern farming systems – or worse, that organic methods are the only acceptable way forward.

The VI, initially begrudged by many but increasingly accepted by all but a minority of conventional farmers and organic advocates, has done much to show that the risks from today’s agchem products used professionally and responsibly are minimal.

No system is risk-free. But the VI, with its three-pronged operator training/register, sprayer testing and crop protection management plan approach, has encouraged a professionalism that has long surpassed its initial underlying aim, namely to stave off a tax on pesticides.

So it is particularly galling to see the proposal that the National Action Plan, intended to make swingeing cuts in pesticide use, be paid for by an industry levy or tax.

Those who wish to introduce such draconian measures must provide undeniable, independently assessed, scientific evidence to support their case.

Failure to do so will merely reinforce the view that they are adopting the politically easy but scientifically naïve option of playing along for “green” votes.

According to a recent survey by the insurance group UNUM of nearly 1000 workers, only 43% were satified with career progression opportunities.

This has got me thinking about farming - and sadly career development opportunities are still thin on the ground for some employees.

If we want to attract and retain the most talented youngsters into our sector, we need to offer them all the opportunities for self development and advancement that other industries do.

Some farmers and farm managers appreciate this - I suspect some however take the view:
Work hard here for five years lad, then you might get to drive the old (small) tractor.

It's great to buy your groceries on-line but there's been a hiccup in East Sussex. An order placed on 20 August cannot be delivered until 30 August due apparently to lack of staff.

A young mum in Uckfield with a four year old and a 10 day old baby was telephoned by the great supermarket Tesco and told that she could go and collect her shopping from Lewes almost 10 miles away.

Unable to drive for six weeks, she has had to make alternative arrangements - So much for Every Little Helps!

Remember the TV programme Kill it, Cook it, Eat it shown earlier this year which prompted loads of comments from Food For Thought readers.

Well it seems that the TV production company is going for a second series and is appealing for people to appear in the audience.

BBC3 are looking for people to take part in a returning series of the ground-breaking programme Kill it, Cook it, Eat it.

This new series will challenge conventional views about uncommon cuts of meat and will contrast the predictable with the exceptional. We’ll be killing, cooking and eating suckling pigs, milk-fed lambs, kid goats and veal calves.

Whether you’re a vegan or a meat connoisseur or simply want to confront head-on the processes involved in getting meat from the field to your fork then please get in touch.

We’re looking for people with opinions about meat and where it comes from to join our studio audience of celebrity guests, experts, vegetarians and carnivores! We’d ideally like our studio guests to reflect the age range of a BBC 3 audience – that’s between 17 and 30 though families are also welcome. Whatever your interest, we want to hear your views!

If you would like to be considered, simply send us an email with the words MEAT FORM in the subject heading and application details will be sent to you. Please be aware that you may need to be available one full weekday in early to mid September (although weekend dates may be available).

Email us at: meat@fireflyproductions.tv
Or call us on: 0207 033 2302

It is worth noting that there is some concern among industry bodies that this series is going to involve milk-fed lambs, suckling pigs and veal calves because they aren't respresentative of the UK industry and might provoke more of an extreme reaction with the public.

However, I guess that makes it even more important to have knowledgeable people in the audience will be able to explain calmly and rationally what is going on.

I've been fighting a losing battle with the slugs in my garden so this piece on the BBC website caught my eye.

It quotes Bayer's Bill Lankford as saying that if it continues to be wet and warm - as long-range forecasts suggest - the current infestation could develop into a plague. This is a real worry for growers.

And the figures he quotes are incredible. An average of 61 slugs have been found per square metre of land in counts done by Bayer researchers.

This is an increase of more than 50% on previous years and the total slug population would be nearly 15 billion if this is replicated across the UK.

The Hindu temple at the centre of the Shambo saga - Skanda Vale - has hit the headlines again. Apparently it has had to have two more animals slaughtered because of bovine TB. The Welsh Assembly has also remarked on a "worrying pattern of test results from other cattle in the herd at Skanda Vale".

The temple says that killing the cattle is wrong because the animals are sacred and should be allowed to live out the full natural span of their lives. But what does natural span mean bearing in mind the following quotes on the temple's website:

Bhakti was an elderly jersey bullock. He had arthritis and difficulty walking. We cared for him for many years working with our veterinary surgeon to ensure that he had the necessary medication to manage his condition and that his quality of life was maintained to the highest standards. We would no more consider it acceptable to kill an elderly frail bullock than it would be to kill an elderly frail gentlemen.

Our oldest cow, Gauri, is twenty one years old and Mooki, our oldest bullock, is 15 years old. Gauri’s teeth are worn down because of her age so she is fed a special mix of sugar beet, maize bran and alfalfa grass. Mooki can stand up, but because of arthritis he cannot walk more than a few steps. He is comfortable on one side only, and if he sits down in the wrong position the monks have to turn him over to his more comfortable side. This manoeuvre takes four monks and needs to be done five times a day.

Headline wheat prices of more than £150/t appear to be great news for arable growers, but inevitably mean massive cost increases for livestock farmers.

Again, the industry faces an uncomfortable prospect of welcoming the renewal of one sector’s fortunes at the painful expense of another.

Of course, £150/t, with sizeable premiums for milling wheat, is excellent news. But it would be too easy to lose sight of how uncertain the market looked just a year ago, with feed wheat struggling to better £70/t. Many farmers sensibly committed significant tonnages ahead as prices started to rise and some will be kicking themselves as the market took off in the past few weeks.

I’ve noticed a new, cunning trend in farming.

In the past, farm lobby groups used to get it in the necks for not correcting ‘errors’ in the press. This was despite the fact that often they had written a letter to the paper in question – it just hadn’t been picked up for publication.

The new strategy that bodies like the NFU have adopted is to publish all the letters they have written to the newspapers on their own website as soon as they are penned.

Now, even if it is not included on the letter’s page of a broadsheet or tabloid, the press office can at least show members that they tried.

It’s a bit like the current school exam system – you don’t actually need to get the right answer, you can get loads of marks just by showing your ‘working’.

The NFU is not alone in this strategy. The Health and Safety Executive put an interesting letter on its website yesterday – this time to Farmers Weekly.

Makes me think they doubted we were going to publish it. But I’d suggest they read Farmers Weekly on 7 September…

What is all the fuss about higher food prices? Food has been too cheap for years and we as a nation have to just face up to the fact. As the NFU has pointed out:

1) In the last 20 years food has become 20 per cent cheaper in real terms.
2) Sixty years ago the average British family spent more than one-third of its income on food. This has now dropped to less than one-tenth.

If you are on a low income and are having to watch every penny then higher prices may make things difficult. But surveys keep showing that significant numbers of people throw away vast quantities of food because they are overbuying.

Perhaps higher food prices might stop that nasty habit.

NFU Scotland has issued some really interesting figures which highlight that livestock farmers need an urgent price increase because of rocketing feed costs.

But at the same time they show that retailers and manufactuers can't use commodity price rises to justify massive increases in retail prices.

A 30p/kg rise for pig farmers – to cover extra feed costs – would represent a rise of only 13p on a typical pack of pork steaks or sausages, 10 pence on a pack of bacon and 4 pence on a pack of sliced ham.

The doubling of wheat prices only adds 8 pence to the price of a loaf (every £10 per tonne increase in wheat prices is equivalent to one pence on the retail price of bread).

If malting barley doubled in price, it would add around 3 pence to a bottle of whisky.

In the last year of its life, a prime suckler beef animal will eat around one tonne of barley. The cost of this has increased from £90/t to £170/t. Suckler beef producers need an extra 25p per kilo deadweight, just to cover that individual cost.

Would you like to farm in the US? Do you reckon you would escape the red tape and stress that seems to bind UK food producers?

Well, this piece written by a regular contributor to the FWiSpace dicussion forums rather suggests that you'd face the same problems as in the UK. As part of the new US Farm Bill, producers look like they will see their support cut and that which is available watered down by wider rural objectives.

As the author says:

Everyone from apple growers to the Sierra Club wants a say in how this bill is crafted, and a substantial share of the money for their particular interests. It surprises many non farmers to learn that the "farm" bill also funds school lunches and food stamps, wildlife habitat, the forestry service (which not only handles forests but does things like provide surplus vehicles to volunteer fire departments) and a variety of rural development projects. The farmer gets the blame, someone else gets the money.

EU farm commissioner Marian Fischer Boel has spoken out on the issue of rising food prices.

Here's a taste of what she said:

Of course, in this whole debate about food prices, we cannot lose sight of the effect on consumers. It hurts consumers in their pockets when food prices go up.

Here, I will say only this: the increases in supermarket milk prices in some Member States are definitely not warranted by the overall market supply situation in the EU. And, as we all know, the contribution of the raw material to the final price of foods like bread is relatively small, so I hope that the supermarkets and discounters will act responsibly.

Concerns have also been raised that livestock producers face much higher feed prices in the short to medium term. Certainly, this is a concern that I share. Having said that, pig and poultry producers all over the world are affected by high cereal prices, even in low cost competitors like Brazil.

This will lead to adjustments in world meat prices. So I hope that the global competitiveness of European farmers should not be overly affected by the current situation.

Finally, as I’ve said on numerous occasions, I hope European consumers will put their money where their mouth is and be prepared to pay a little bit more for EU produce.

Where we win out every time is in quality and in the attention we pay to animal welfare and the environment. That is something well worth paying for.

You can read the rest of her thoughts on her blog.