FARMERS PROTEST OVER CLAMP DOWN

Even though foot and mouth restrictions on meat exports are likely to be lifted across most of England and Wales this week, the NFU has branded as perverse the commission's insistence that movement restrictions are tightened on the South East.

More than five weeks on from the last confirmed outbreak of foot and mouth disease, the EC's Standing Committee on Food Chain and Animal Health (Scofcah) agreed last week to lift restrictions on British meat exports in the next few days.

But it decreed that a ban must remain on exports from Surrey, Buckinghamshire, East Berk-shire, West Sussex and Hampshire.

More illogical, according to the NFU, is a new rule that will prevent animals being moved out of an area within 150km of Pirbright in Surrey (the centre of the disease outbreak), except to slaughter.

NFU president Peter Kendall said: "The lifting of export restrictions across most of the country is very good news, and we expect to see a rapid, significant and badly needed improvement in market prices for lambs, cull cows and cull sows as a result of it.

For full story see West Sussex Gazette November 14