03 August, 2001

Daelnet has steadfastly refused to publish any of the scores of rumours circulating the countryside during the foot and mouth crisis. But if one particular allegation is true, it will have a devastating effect on British agriculture, says John Sheard.

And that is the allegation which has now reached the media from South Wales that farmers have been offered diseased sheep at up to £2,000 a time so that they can deliberately infect their flocks to get Government compensation.

Now this rumour is not new. I heard it in Cumbria three months ago, along with dozens of stories of how farmers in that county were picking up £1 million compensation cheques and were going to quit farming altogether - laughing all the way to the bank.

I refused to publish this and many more stories because there was no proof available. I also know that the rural rumour mill, normally pretty active at the best of times, has gone into warp speed since foot and mouth arrived.

DEFRA officials and the police are now investigating the South Wales allegations and, if they are proved to be true, the reputation of British farming - already under attack following a series of food scandals - will never recover.

There are already millions of townies who treat farmers with the greatest of suspicion. Should someone be convicted of deliberately spreading this plague, the entire industry will be dismissed as a bunch of crooks.

In all this, the farmers are unjustly the fall guys. Most of the recent food scares came from feed which was given to livestock in good faith. Farmers are not biochemists. If they use feed from reputable sources, they can do little more. If a townie buys medicine from Boots, for instance, he has no real idea what is in it - but he expects it to be safe.

I have long argued that the subsidy system should be changed so that farmers are compensated for this work, rather than for over-production of food, and there are clear indications that the government is finally coming round to this point of view.

But if a single farmer is convicted of deliberately spreading foot and mouth, the Treasury will be given the excuse to turn off the tap. And what then will happen to our farmers and the countryside they tend?