ABSTRACT
The foot and mouth outbreak of 2001 involved the slaughter of at least seven million animals. Many of these animals were not infected by the disease but the chosen method of stamping out the disease by culling the animals meant that there was no time to await confirmatory tests. Such was the virulence of the foot and mouth disease (FMD) that by the time it was discovered in 2001 it had already spread to different areas of the country and thereafter the race was on to get ahead of the disease by the culling of, not only animals suspected as infected, but also stock on surrounding, contiguous farms. In the event fewer than one in four animals slaughtered were infected (Vincent 2006). The estimated costs arising from the 2001 outbreak have been put at no less than £9 billion, with at least £3 billion in direct costs to the public sector and about £5 billion in costs to tourism and the rural economy. Out of the total costs incurred during the outbreak, compensation payments to farmers for the slaughter of their animals were said to amount to £1.34 billion. The lasting impact on the farming and wider rural community of this episode cannot be understated. It has scarred not only those farmers whose animals were culled; those unaffected by the disease as such but unable to move stock to market arguably suffered more. These losses went uncompensated whereas the mandatory culling of animals at least triggered a payment of compensation under the Animal Health Act 1981. As the figures above show, few in the rural community found shelter from the storm created by the outbreak.
