THOUSANDS MORE JOBS THREATENED DUE TO FOOT AND
MOUTH - NFU
Foot and mouth will cause thousands more jobs to
haemorrhage from farming, following the 51,000 that have already been shed in
the last few years, NFU President Ben Gill said today.
Giving his analysis of the current state of farming - a presentation normally
made at the cancelled Royal Show - he said the disease had rocked an industry
at its lowest ebb for 60 years.
He ran through the latest available statistics which show earnings of just
£5,200 per farmer, total borrowings rising to a new high of more than
£10 billion and the income from the whole of farming £3 billion less
than it was five years ago at £1.88 billion.
And things are as bad for cereal producers as for foot and mouth-devastated
livestock farmers. Last year's floods have meant that the harvest this year
could be down about four million tonnes, hitting incomes further.
The NFU is pressing for a recovery programme that will include:
* The payment by the Government of the £34 million "agrimoney"
package triggered this weekend for arable farmers.
* Dramatic improvements in import controls for meat and plants to stop foot and
mouth ever happening again.
* Emergency measures for the sheep sector to cope with the disappearance of the
export market and the desperate need for sheepmovements.
* The re-opening of the Over Thirty Months Scheme for cattle that do not go
into the food chain. This has been closed because the disposal capacity was
needed to cope with foot and mouth.
Mr Gill said: "We are halfway through the year and what a disaster it has
been so far. At the Royal Show last year we thought things were bad - but foot
and mouth has taken us out of the frying pan and into the blast furnace.
"If we are to get through the next six months and into 2002 we will need a
clear recovery programme. We are working on this with the new Department of
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
"But we also know that at the end of the day, the only way we will ever
really recover is to focus even more on the marketplace. Only then can we put
the profit back into farming and turn today's depressing statistics into
something to be proud of."
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