Byrne challenged to rule on foot-and-mouth animal culls

Date: 28/03/02

By David Cronin

FOOD safety chief David Byrne is being asked to state if Britain broke EU law last year by requiring farmers to kill herds in areas where no proven incident of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) had occurred.

German Socialist Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfler, who is preparing a report for the European Parliament's temporary committee on the outbreak, wants to know whether 'the handling of FMD was compatible with EU legislation'.

The MEP tabled a question to the Commission after solicitor Alayne Addy outlined to the committee how the UK may have broken the law.

The Union's directive covering the disease states that culls should only take place if proof of FMD has been detected.

Addy has represented farmers who lost entire herds due to London's insistence on 'contiguous culling' during the crisis.

This involved the wholesale slaughter of farm animals in areas without confirmed FMD cases, but neighbouring districts where the disease had been found.

The culling policy was defended by former UK agriculture minister Nick Brown, who also addressed the committee on Tuesday (26 March). This drew sharp criticism from Welsh nationalist MEP Euryg Wynn: 'Two hundred farms in the UK were saved from this slaughter policy as a direct result of court action relying on the EU directive which permits culling only on evidence.

'It is important to note that none of those farms subsequently developed the disease. This is quite remarkable when, out of the 10,000 farms 'taken out' as part of the mass cull in the UK, only 1,300 had positive blood tests.'

Green member Caroline Lucas described Brown's presentation in Brussels as evasive and ambiguous.

'It is shameful we are no nearer to understanding why the response to foot-and- mouth was allowed to shut down the countryside, downgrade vaccination in favour of the indiscriminate slaughter of millions of healthy animals and cripple our rural economy.'

She also accused the UK government of understating how many animals were slaughtered in response to the outbreak.

The official figure stands at 4.1 million but estimates compiled by independent experts suggest the real number is about 10 million. The alternative data is partly based on reports that millions of young lambs died in culls ostensibly targeting ewes, without their slaughter being registered.

UK Socialist Gordon Adam praised Brown for appearing before the committee. He contrasted this with the refusal of the Conservatives' then farm minister Douglas Hogg to appear before the former European Parliament committee set up to investigate mad cow disease.

The European Commissioner for food safety, David Byrne, is being asked to state if Britain broke EU law in 2001 by requiring farmers to kill herds in areas where no proven incident of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) had occurred.