Agriculture is increasingly a battle field between capitalist economics and the socialist principles of production guided by "social foresight" (Marx to the First International).
Below is a dramatic report from the Guardian about the latest twist in the economics, and science, of foot and mouth.While reading it, bear in mind that a few years ago the island of Taiwan was defeated by foot and mouth, mass slaughter was abandoned, and vaccination was used to control foot and mouth as an endemic disease - at the cost of loss of the export trade!
Chris Burford
London
The Ministry of Agriculture's mass slaughter policy is scientifically mistaken, helps to spread the disease, is agriculturally and economically suicidal, and could be be illegal under European law, documents obtained by the Guardian suggest.
A seven-page paper prepared by one of Britain's most prominent vets, who has close associations with the world foot and mouth disease centre at Pirbright, Surrey, draws on academic research into outbreaks around the world and proposes emergency vaccination as the quickest and most effective way to bring the disease under control. Vaccination would, it says, end the public's horror of mass funeral pyres and decomposing carcasses and help restore confidence in Britain's farmers.
"The infection is simply too infectious under British conditions in high-density stock- rearing areas for control by slaughter policy, especially where the authorities have proven unable to slaughter within two days. The speed of the response in many cases can be seen to have contravened EU law which requires slaughter and safe disposal without delay and with no risk of spreading the virus," the paper says.
The report was written for Elm Farm research centre, the world's leading organic farming research organisation, whose projects are funded by Maff, the EU and others. The centre is planning a legal challenge to the ministry's policy.
The document, whose author asked to remain anonymous, suggests that the long delays in slaughtering and disposing of carcasses have already led to new infections and that each unrecognised animal with foot and mouth could be expected to result in between five and 50 new infections within seven days.
"The reported delays of three to four days from suspicion of infection to slaughter are too slow to be effective in preventing the spread of the disease beyond 3-5km and the establishment of infection in new areas."
The report paints a dismal picture of the spread of the disease and suggests that the government has no idea how far it has spread. "There is simply no evidence available on how many animals have become infected beyond the restriction zones, especially those which may have received windborne virus from the first infected pig farms. It simply cannot be concluded that infection has been restricted to areas planned for the cull," it says.
It proposes immediate emergency vaccinations which can "enormously" reduce the risk of airborne and vehicular spread of the diseases to unaffected areas and would increase public confidence. "It is also ethically and politically acceptable, a rational response to an exceptionally infective condition and which has a very rapid response. It could result in near 100% vaccination rates within five days and almost complete immunity in 10 days. A reduction of cases to zero could be expected within three weeks."
The government has sev eral options, according to the paper. The first would be to vaccinate all sheep and pigs in the restricted zones to prevent transmission and risk to surrounding areas, followed by the "orderly slaughter" of all vaccinated animals and active cases. This, it says, would curtail the crisis within three weeks and allow Britain to regain its foot and mouth-free status within three months.
Another option would be to vaccinate in the restricted zones and then in a ring around them. This, the paper says, would be more effective at controlling the outbreaks but would also mean the regional destruction of healthy flocks, which is seen by the public and farmers as nonsensical. However it, too, would enable Britain to quickly regain its FMD-free status.
The third option would be to vaccinate animals without culling them unless foot and mouth is diagnosed as present in the herd. This would, says the report, damage the £400m-a-year export trade but should be set against the loss to other sectors, which have been estimated at up to £9bn. "At worst with emergency vaccination, exports would be curtailed for a year, at best for as short as three months", the paper concludes.
Crucially, it says, Britain could regain its FMD-free status and its export trade faster than the government has suggested, because new scientific tests have transformed scientists' ability to distinguish vaccinated animals that have not met the infection and also those that have been vaccinated and then met the virus. The EU scientific committee, the paper suggests, believes "these tests would allow an earlier lifting of restrictions on the movement of vaccinated animals".
The ministry has so far dismissed vaccination as a viable option, but other countries, including the United States, now favour a mix of slaughter and emergency vaccination to combat outbreaks. Nationally, the National Farmers' Union is still opposed to vaccination, but the Cumbria branch has called for limited vaccination as the crisis has worsened.