(22 Feb 2001) English/Nat
British sheep farmers fear they will bear the brunt of the export ban on British livestock imposed by the European Union in an effort to contain foot and mouth disease in cloven-footed animals.
The highly infectious virus was identified in 27 pigs in a English abattoir on Monday, at Little Warley in Essex, northeast of London.
The exclusion area around the abattoir was expanded to 10 miles and controls set up around five farms, from Yorkshire in the north of England to the Isle of Wight off the southern coast, that supplied pigs to the slaughterhouse.
Foot and Mouth disease affects cloven-footed animals, which includes sheep, goats, pigs and cows.
It is not usually fatal but can cause weight loss and reduced dairy production in cattle.
It can spread quickly through the air.
At Northampton livestock market on Thursday, people working in the industry said sheep farmers would be most badly hit by the EU export ban.
Britain exports few pig products and exports of cattle have not yet recovered from the BSE crisis.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"I don't see that price of cattle and pigs being affected too much - it will be the prime lambs , they will be affected most because of the export ban"
SUPER CAPTION: Mike Carter, Pig and Sheep Auctioneer
The EU said it would review its ban at a February 27 meeting of the Standing Veterinary Committee.
Meanwhile farmers and dealers are in limbo until a decision to lift the ban is made.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"At the moment people won't order anything because they don't know whether they will want lambs or not, we have got half of our lambs waiting to be exported, dead really, and there's just not trade for them. People won't commit to ordering lambs until they know if the export ban is going to be lifted."
SUPER CAPTION: Craig Griffiths, Sheep Farmer and Dealer
The disease is just the latest crisis to hit Britain's farming community, still shell-shocked from the BSE crisis.
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, as it is commonly known, is the suspected cause of the fatal variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
That outbreak reached epidemic proportions in Britain after it was diagnosed in 1986 and led to wholesale herd slaughtering, mandatory testing and an EU ban on British beef exports that has since been lifted.
Luke Stacey has a sheep and cattle farm in Buckinghamshire, that lies within the exclusion zone around one of the farms where the infection is believed to have started.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"People have just given up really. It's been one thing after another, all come from outside farming and there's nothing we can do about it. People are just resigned to fact that there seems to be crisis after crisis."
SUPER CAPTION: Luke Stacey, Cattle and Sheep Farmer
The last foot and mouth outbreak in Britain occurred in 1981.
An outbreak in 1967 led to the slaughter of more than 400,000 animals.
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