MAFF’s incompetence was reported in Private Eye’s inquiry ‘Not the Foot and Mouth
Repot’. Wayne and Julie Nuttall, owners of Plunderland Farm, had their stock of five
hundred animals slaughtered by soldiers and MAFF employees, including a pet pig
owned by the family’s young sons. It was, however, discove red later that their farm was almost one hundred miles away from the three-kilometre culling zone. 12 Here,
we not only witness the economic and emotional cost of the pre-emptive culling but
many of these animals were never bred for slaughter and served as pets, forming
deep emotional bonds with their owners.
Communication between MAFF and farmers was also handled poorly,
causing uncertainty amongst many farmers, unsure if their livestock were due to be
culled or not. Marje Thomilson, an administrative assistant at Caldew School in
Dalston, recalls when the three-kilometre cull was introduced in her local area. She
describes the frightened and distraught parents who came through the school. After
the cull was announced, she broke down, knowing that many of her friends and neighbours were losing their livelihoods. 13 After hours of calling her friends and neighbours to offer her condolences and support, MAFF revised their position on the three-kilometre cull, cattle within the three kilometres would not be put to slaughter. 14
Nick Utting, Secretary for the NFU (National Farmers Union) in North Cumbria, also
recalls the panic caused by this U- turn. Speaking of MAFF and the government’s
decisions, Utting recalled, “Much anguish was caused by Governments inability to
operate a plan to cope with such disasters and their knee jerk decisions which affected all out lives so dramatically on a daily basis”. 15 These sudden and ill-
thought-out changes in policy must have affected the mental state of the farming
communities. A study published in the Journal of Mental Health focusing on Cumbria
showed that during the initial stages of the outbreak, 70% of wives who took part in the study expressed concerns for their husband’s mental health. 16 The mental cost of
MAFF and the government’s inability to provide transparent information regarding
12 Muckspreader, ‘Not the Foot and Mouth Report’, Private Eye , November 2001 https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/not-the-foot-and-mouth [Accessed on 17 April 2023] p.17.
13 Marje Thomilson diary entry in Graham, Caz, Foot, and Mouth: Heart and Soul - A Collection of Personal Accounts of the Foot and Mouth Outbreak in Cumbria 2001, (Carlisle: Small Sistera; 2001) p.65. 14 Ibid. 15 Nick Utting’s diary entry in, Graham, Foot, and Mouth, p.15/16. 16 Peck, ‘Psychological impact of foot -and- mouth disease on farmers’, p.524.
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