At the time of writing there are just over 60 cases of foot and mouth decease confirmed in Devon and sadly the number is increasing daily. The handling of the crisis to date has been a total cock up, but at last the government have called in the army and have just announced a total cull 2 miles round each case. This is devastating for many farmers and my heart goes out to all those affected. Hopefully this draconian action will work, but what a shame that the slaughtering and disposal was not done quicker in the first place. So far there have been no cases in Bradworthy, and we must hope and pray that this continues to be so.
I am thankful that we are not farming in the thick of the destruction, but for those of us in farming, we live in fear that the decease might strike at any time. We are not far from the nearest case, and new isolated cases are cropping up all the time. We have tried to prepare ourselves for the worst, but hope for the best.
We caused a bit of a scare here a couple of weeks ago when the ministry came and served a form D notice on us. This was because a milk tanker had been to an infected farm on the 18th February and then on to us. We were very grateful for the concerned telephone calls we received from a number of people. In these difficult times, sharing your worries with others is very important.
Much has been said and will be said about the cause of the problem. It was caused by the infection coming into this country either by importing meat from an infected country, or an illegal import.It has nothing to do with modern farming methods, some have suggested that Organically farmed animals are less likely to get it.This is not so, the virus does not respect how the animal is farmed. The number of animal movements that take place across the country has made the spread worse. This is an area which will have to be controlled better in future, as well as controlling imports to make sure that when this is all over it never happens again.
Many farmers have had major problems due to movement restrictions not being able to move stock either to slaughter or to get sheep nearer to home for lambing, which has caused welfare problems and cashflow problems. Fortunately we are able to sell our milk and we have not suffered from movement restrictions. We may have difficulties in a few weeks time because under the present restrictions we are unable to take the cows along the road.
Like most farmers we are limiting the amount of times we move off and onto the farm, so apart from going to church each week and essential trips to the pub or to Holsworthy for farm supplies we have stayed at home. Cally has done all her shopping in the village for the past month. She tells me that the increase in cost has been marginal, but the saving in petrol has been considerable, which shows that shopping locally does pay. As a friend of mine often says, it is a poor show that with all the milk produced in Bradworthy you can't by locally produced milk in the village. Perhaps this will change one day.
The weather recently has not helped matters. Cold weather helps the virus to thrive. What we desperately need is some warm sunny weather, which will help kill the virus, make the grass grow and make us all feel a lot better.