Foot-and-mouth family wont give up
24 February 2001
Foot-and-mouth family wont give up
A NORTHUMBERLAND family whose livestock have been hit with foot-and mouth disease have vowed that the catastrophe will not force them out of farming.
Ian Williamson, who farms in and around Ponteland with his sons Andrew and Graeme, told Farmers Weekly of his shock when the disease was diagnosed.
“It has just been absolute sheer chaos,” he said on Saturday (24 February), the day after the farm became the sixth site infected with foot-and-mouth.
Mr Williamson said that 140 pedigree Limousin cattle and hundreds of sheep would be culled on two farms run by his family.
The family will be fully compensated for the slaughtered animals kept on Home Farm and Prestwick Hall Farm which are just a mile apart.
But they will receive no compensation for knock-on losses and will be banned from keeping livestock on the affected farms for an extended period.
Mr Williamson said the disaster will not sever the familiys long connection with farming even though he is near retiring age.
Sounding exceptionally calm, he pledged: “We will start again.”
The one silver lining is that the a third farm 12 miles away, run by Graeme Williamson, is not currently facing a slaughter order.
The infected farms are about two miles away from a pig farm at Heddon-on-the-Wall, where the foot-and-mouth outbreak is believed to have started.
Mr Williamson said the wind was the most likely cause of the spread.
He said: “Our feed is almost all home-grown and we only buy in a little extra protein from reputable feed companies.”
Mr Williamson said his family was grateful for numerous messages of support and sympathy it had received since the devastating new broke.