Lift red tape, plead Cumbria farmers
25 March 2001
Lift red tape, plead Cumbria farmers
By Jeremy Hunt, north-west correspondent
AMID fears that a foot-and-mouth cull will wipe out all sheep in Cumbria, some farmers are desperately trying to save their flocks.
Farmers in south Cumbria staring into the teeth of the advancing disease are pleading for a derogation on livestock movements on animal welfare grounds.
Without this there are fears that farmers may be tempted to move stock under cover of darkness, increasing the risk of spreading the disease.
These calls come as the Ministry of Agriculture gears up for a huge pre-emptive slaughter of 300,000 sheep in the county, the most heavily infected in the country.
Army diggers are reported to be are excavating a large area next to a military airfield at Long Orton, near Wigton, Cumbria.
It it thought a backlog of dead sheep will be brought there and then live animals will be brought there for slaughter under the firebreak cull.
MAFF rules on infected area status have placed parts of southern Cumbria under tight movement restrictions.
According to the National Farmers Union, this is due to a quirk in the way MAFF interprets the infected area boundaries.
Thousands of pregnant ewes that should be housed and receiving pre-lambing management are stuck on bare winter grazing fields many miles from home.
As there are cases of sickly and prolapsing ewes, it is feared some farmers could illegally move stock home to reduce suffering.
Red tape is holding up the issuing of welfare movement licences by up to a fortnight, says Kendal-based NFU spokesman Derek Lomax.
Some farmers are travelling up to 12-miles, eight times a day to check ewes on rented winter grazing
He is calling on MAFF to approve the derogation so that in one movement these ewes can be brought back to the home farms where they can properly cared for.
“The situation is unacceptable and we need an end to the red-tape so that these sheep can be brought home,” said Mr Lomax
“Whatever their ultimate end, farmers do not want to see heavily pregnant ewes suffering like this.”
Mr Lomax said the situation was particularly difficult for hill flocks with in-lamb ewes still on rented lowland grazings.
“Many of these farmers from the Lake District fells have already lost part of their flocks which were away wintered in the north of the county and have been slaughtered.
“These remaining ewes on rented land in south Cumbria will provide a vital seed stock of hefted sheep needed for fell farms whose flocks are already depleted.”
And many dairy farmers are also facing a dilemma.
Ewes taken for the winter — which should have been sent home weeks ago — are now eating spring grass soon to be needed for dairy cows and silage.
Forty five new outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease were confirmed on Saturday (24 March), including 20 in Cumbria.
Of the 560 confirmed cases of the disease in the UK, 204 are in Cumbria.