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Foot and Mouth in Leicestershire
by Bob Walker |
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There are fears that foot and mouth may have returned to Leicestershire after two herds of cattle were destroyed as a precaution against the disease.
It's more than three months since the county was declared disease free and farmers are puzzled by the cause of the possible outbreak. So far almost 40 animals have been slaughtered. The farms affected are at Copt Oak near Loughborough and Sketchley near Hinckley.
Officials from DEFRA are now carrying out tests on samples taken from the animals. Results are expected shortly.
Farmers' leader Ben Gill spoke of his hope that the two suspected cases would not be confirmed.
The president of the National Farmers Union said that the view of the
Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was that there was
hope that the cases would not be confirmed.
"We are awaiting the test results for these cases and while I do not want to
be overly optimistic the position that I have from Defra as from this morning is
that there is hope that these will not be confirmed," he told a joint English
Nature and NFU launch of a five-point plan for wildlife friendly farming.
However the possibility of a recurrence in Leicestershire has frightened local farmers.
Mike Fisher, who runs a dairy farm at Stoke Golding near Hinckley, is praying the tests prove negative. In the last outbreak a farm in the same village was hit by the disease and Mr Fisher feared at one stage that Foot and Mouth would spread to his animals.
In another development is was revealed today that the Foot and Mouth outbreak has cost the tourist industry in the East Midlands more than 拢100 million.
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