One of the biggest fears that we have about Foot and Mouth is that we are told that it, or other infectious diseases, are going to come back into the country again and for many of us this feels like a time bomb. There is so much frustration that so little has been done to close those routes into the country, so little is being done to police the importation of illegal meat and animals, there have been no prosecutions in the last 2 years. And after all we’ve been through, that in itself is a very bitter pill to try and endure as we go about rebuilding our lives. We feel we are not being supported, we feel we are being let down.
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To me this outbreak of Foot and Mouth was one of the biggest disasters to hit England since the last World War. I do also believe it could have been contained and wiped out very quickly if local know-how and the Army had been brought in right away. It seemed nothing had been learned from previous outbreaks of Foot and Mouth to hit the country over the years. They just seemed to ignore it, hoping it would go away, causing a great deal of mistrust at the same time.
...This caused a great deal of stress-related problems with farmers and other people connected with the farming community. There are others who think farmers were paid too much compensation for livestock. If they stopped to think, and really understood the ways of farming, maybe they would realise how many years of breeding and bloodstock had been lost.
I refer back to the biggest disaster since the last war. If one stops to reflect it is very much like a war: deaths, grieving families, restrictions of movement of people and functions. One of the most significant things that hit me was the empty silent fields. I am afraid it hit me very hard in lots of ways. I had some close friends and also relations who went down with Foot and Mouth and believe me I shed tears, sharing in their grief.
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The other thing that everybody says is ‘FMD was two years ago’ I was talking to a farmer last week who was thinking about re-stocking now, the re-stocking is still going on, the after-effects are still going on. And when you re-stock a farm it takes a long time before you get the age structure, and you get the stock back to what you, what the farmer would normally have. Even farmers who have bought in whole farms, or bought a whole, another farm’s stock on rather than buying some here some there, there’s usually, they’re bringing them into a different system, a different management system, a different area with different diseases. And one of the problems I think which has not been addressed by any of the policy-makers are the problems that have been seen on re-stocking which I think should be addressed, and funding should be put forward into sort of researching that so that advice can be given to farmers on re-stocking when this happens again.
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Lessons were not learned from the 67 outbreak and the major concern is that if it happens again lessons will not have been learned from this outbreak. There were a lot of people who were badly treated either intentionally or not, mentally and physically who have said that they would not help next time. If only a small percentage of people do not help next time then there will be a huge void of valuable knowledge and expertise lost that could not be replaced. Nobody, the farmers, vets contractors, field officers etc, have any faith that suitable precautions are in place now to stop another outbreak. If lessons cannot be learned from 2001 and measures put in place for an for another outbreak what chance have we next time?
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As foot and mouth spread, the tensions and stresses it brought, were very visible to those who were in contact with affected people. As the disease struck, new stresses occurred, major decisions had to be made, whether to remain in farming, when and how to restock, what if it re-occurred. But eventually decisions were made and life began to have some kind of normal pattern. But what happened to all that stress and tension? Where are we now? I think that’s the biggest unanswered question. Some people may have resolved their experiences but I feel for the majority, it was put on to the back burner and gradually buried in the day to day realities of living. This does not mean that it’s gone. For many people it’s like an unexploded bomb. At some point in their individual lives, some event will trigger its detonation. Emotions are still more obviously near the surface that some might believe. Specialised sales, a lame sheep, a dead ewe or a calf, previously part and parcel of normal farming life, can revoke the emotions of that time. Stress can also be detrimental to physical health and it plays a large contributing part in many conditions. Yet the effect of the stress of that period will remain undocumented and unappreciated as it will be hard to allocate blame to one specific time frame.