Twenty-five years ago: the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK

An outbreak of the highly infectious animal transmitted foot-and-mouth disease in the UK was one of the worst in the world. Roughly 6 million cattle, sheep, and pigs were culled, and mass funeral pyres became a striking image of the British countryside. Rural communities were shut off, tourism devastated, and movement across the countryside severely restricted. The crisis was so serious that the 2001 UK general election had to be postponed.

To prevent the spread of foot and mouth, worker s have their boots sprayed before entering Orchard farm in west Horndon, Essex, 21 February 2001. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

The export ban, agreed between the European Union and the UK immediately the outbreak was confirmed, will cost farmers and food producers £1m a day in live animal and food products, including dairy products.

The source of the disease is unknown but is so virulent it can spread on the wind. The agriculture minister, Nick Brown, last night asked all farmers to check their stock, and said the government’s priority was to stop the outbreak.
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Ailing industry braces for hammer blow

By James Meikle

The UK livestock industry was last night braced for another catastrophe as the National Farmers’ Union warned that this week’s outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease could prove “disastrous” for its members.

Farmers are faced with another crisis at a time when they “already have too many problems to deal with,” the NFU said. However, it accepted that the export ban was a “necessary evil” to control the disease and the industry was determined to stop its spread “dead in its tracks”
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Explainer on the foot and mouth outbreak, the Guardian 22 February 2001.

Humans safe, food agency insists

By Felicity Lawrence

The food standards agency last night reassured consumers that the European Commission ban on the export of UK meat and dairy produce had no direct implications for human health, but there were fears that shoppers’ confidence would be dented by the latest food crisis.

“There are no implications for food safety,” said a spokesman for the FSA, the independent body responsible for food standards and public health. “The ban is purely on animal health grounds.”
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Pig farmers penned in

By Derek Brown

Foot-and-mouth disease spreads with deadly speed. It affects pigs, sheep, goats and cattle. The only way to deal with it is by the most drastic of scorched-earth campaigns. The last big outbreak, in 1967-68, saw the slaughter of nearly 450,000 animals.

For big breeders in particular, the FMD outbreak could not have been worse timed. Their industry has been hammered by tough new animal welfare regulation, by supermarket demands for GM feeds to be eliminated and by a flood of cheap imports, notably from Denmark and the Netherlands.
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Guardian front page coverage of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, 22 February 2001.