A SINGLE outbreak of foot-and-mouth in Devon last weekend triggered the slaughter of 12,000 animals on the infected farm and its 15 neighbours. From space, North Cumbria, overhung with a pall from its grim animal funeral pyres, now ranks second only to Vesuvius as our planet's No 1 hotspot. Back in Devon, the town council at Holdsworthy is so concerned about the smoke from a pyre that will burn for weeks, and perhaps months, that it has prepared emergency plans for the evacuation of the entire town.

This and worse - animals dying of hunger or hypothermia in muddy fields, watercourses polluted by disinfectant or slurry from tanks that can't be emptied, vets culling redundant sheepdogs - is where the madness of the blanket cull against foot-and-mouth has brought us.

The other day, a moorland farmer handed me the current issue of the magazine Dairy Farmer, containing an article on vaccination. "Read it," he urged. "Vaccination is not straightforward."

Quite true. Largely quoting a top scientist at the Institute of Animal Health in Pirbright, which has been the World Reference Laboratory for foot-and-mouth since 1958, it notes that vaccine fails with 15 per cent of cows. And the cost of a test to determine which of the successfully vaccinated animals remain carriers (the majority) would probably be around £135 per animal. The expert also points out that the high-yielding dairy cow of modern farming does not regain anything like full production on recovering from infection.

Even so, the bottom line of this crisis, at least for me, is that whatever the handicaps of vaccination, farming must be prepared to live with them in place of the calamitous handicap risked, and now experienced, through the animal Armageddon we are now witnessing. Above that, the destruction of so many healthy animals - 95 per cent of the 34,000 we are now slaughtering daily - suggests an indifference to life itself.

Slowly, we are stuttering towards the full vaccination, said to be favoured by Tony Blair. But the need to get permission from the EU traps him in a morass beyond the FMD plague. If approval was granted, as it was for ring vaccination last month, the fact that Britain had had to beg for it would cause public ripples.

But a week ago, the EU decided it will not drop its ban on mass vaccination during the present British crisis. It seems the EU trades as a single nation, which effectively reduces its member countries to federal states. Permitting anything more than the ring vaccination would jeopardise the exports of all the EU members. A rebuff for Blair would highlight Britain's subservience to the EU at the worst possible time - the run-up to the general election.

But our EU partners aren't daft. No doubt aware that the British catastrophe could occur on their own soil, several EU ministers have hinted that the ruling against vaccination might change.

Without a return to small-scale farming, the odds will probably always be stacked against tightly limiting an outbreak. But Agriculture Minister Nick Brown is reported (by The Guardian) to favour fewer, larger farms, which he plans to create by clearing off the farmers from "uneconomic farms" with a retirement package.

But let's return to that Dairy Farmer article. Of course, a 15 per cent failure of vaccine means an 85 per cent success. And since Maff said last week that "you have to ensure vaccination is 80-90 per cent effective", the economic case for vaccinating cattle looks strong. And though less so with sheep (a 60 per cent success rate), both the National Trust and Moorland Association want it.

Vaccinate not exterminate: surely the way of truly "modern" farming, and the society to which it belongs?

Published: Wednesday, April 18, 2001