Brown rejects Army link to disease

30 April 2001



Brown rejects Army link to disease

By FWi staff

AGRICULTURE minister Nick Brown has rejected claims that foot-and-mouth was brought to Britain in meat imported from South America by the Army.

The Ministry of Defence has confirmed the Army supplied waste food to the pig farm where the foot-and-mouth outbreak is thought to have spread from.

But Mr Brown told the BBC On the Record programme that it was “completely unjustified” to make a link between the swill and foot-and-mouth.

The minister said that he did not think there was anything in the Armys arrangements that are the cause of the outbreak.

Mr Brown pointed out that in any case the strain of foot-and-mouth found in South America is different to the one which has hit the UK.

Slops from Whitburn Training Camp, near Sunderland, were fed to pigs at Bobby and Ronnie Waughs farm in Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland.

Ministry of Agriculture officials believe that the Waughs farm is the most likely source of the outbreak, a claim denied by the brothers.

Ther MoD insists that all food provided by caterers at the camp conformed to British and European rules that ban imports from areas hit by the disease.

The Waugh brothers collect waste food from the camp 10 times a year for processing, under licence, into pig feed, reported The Sunday Telegraph.

Meanwhile, The Times reports that the Government is ready to stop travellers bringing non-EU meat and dairy imports into Britain.

The newspaper says that Mr Brown believes that it is necessary to strengthen animal health measures in the wake of foot-and-mouth.