Precisely when – or indeed where, or how – the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) actually began is likely to remain forever unclear, but there is no doubt that ten years ago this weekend the country was struggling to deal with the early stages of the worst farming, access and tourist-industry crisis seen in modern times.
Over the next few weeks, The Caledonian Mercury will examine different aspects of what went on in the first half of 2001 – simple recollection of events, along with analysis of what lessons were (and were not) learnt and how the situation might differ should there be another outbreak.
For starters, and as a reminder of the background, it’s worth rounding up (if that’s not too loaded a term given the livestock-culling context) various of the tenth-anniversary reports available online.
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The BBC has a range of ten-years-on articles, mainly covering FMD from a farming viewpoint but spread across most parts of the UK. In Northern Ireland, “even the Orange Order suspended its protest at Drumcree”, while in south-western England former National Farmers Union (NFU) regional director Anthony Gibson is arguing that holidaymakers returning from “problem areas” such as Bulgaria, South Korea and Japan should be required to use disinfectant footbaths on re-entering the UK. Gareth Vaughan of the Farmers’ Union of Wales says that “the government didn’t react quickly enough”, while in Cumbria, Dr Maggie Mort – a Lancaster University sociologist specialising in “Disasters: why do things go wrong?” – says that “people saw things and did things that nobody should have to go through”. In its coverage of the anniversary in south-western Scotland – one of the worst-hit areas in 2001 – the BBC quotes former NFU Scotland president Jim Walker as saying he believes that an outbreak will “definitely happen again”, and that the policy of culling (as opposed to the vaccination) was “definitely the right thing to do”. Juanita Wilson, of the Mossburn Animal Sanctuary at Hightae near Lockerbie, describes the ultimately successful struggle in 2001 to prevent the Mossburn livestock from being culled as “like a civil war, it was them and us”. The NFU Scotland has published its own analysis to mark the anniversary, and argues that “the country is better placed to deal with any new disease outbreak”, but that there are still “concerns over disease security and proper policing at British ports and airports”. The current NFU Scotland president, Nigel Miller – who was working as a vet in Dumfries and Galloway in 2001 – says “Lessons from the 2001 outbreak have been learned and I genuinely believe that we are better placed to deal with an outbreak of any exotic disease within our livestock. At a farm level, our traceability systems for livestock are more robust, making disease control easier, and farmers are far more aware of the benefits of putting biosecurity measures in place to keep disease out of their stock.” Miller is another with concerns over the strength of the ringfence needed to keep the disease out of the country. “Improved policing at ports and airports will help minimise the threat,” he says, “but the reality is that with these diseases continually circulating in other parts of the world, there is an air of inevitability that another major disease outbreak, such as FMD, will reach our shores. “If that happens, then the way we deal with FMD could be markedly different to that seen in 2001. It is possible that vaccination will play a major part in disease control, which makes the role of consumers and retailers increasingly important if we are to have a sensible exit strategy from any future FMD outbreak. The farming community wasn’t by any means the only sector to suffer in 2001, however. One of the main criticisms and sources of ill-feeling at the time was that the impact on the UK and Scottish tourist industries was largely disregarded – in comparison with the very obvious farming impact – at least during the opening months of the outbreak. This despite both farming and tourism being cornerstones of the rural economy. Unlike the NFU, VisitScotland has not marked the anniversary – an omission which itself carries echoes of 2001, given that the farming industry, whether or not one agreed with its position, could hardly be faulted in terms of its proactive stance (bullishness might be the word) compared with other sectors. That the purely farming aspects of a very broad-based crisis dominated the news agenda for so long surely says something about the weakness and slow-off-the-mark-ness of the other interested parties (including government). In terms of the broader picture, especially the effect on tourism, it’s worth recalling the 2003 Scottish government report on the outbreak, commissioned from the Fraser of Allander Institute. This makes for dense reading, but illustrates the economic complexity of what happened – for example a rise in urban tourism to an extent offsetting the rural downturn. This would have been no comfort, however, to a B&B or an independent hostel up a Highland glen faced with cancellations rather than bookings in the dismal early weeks of the crisis before Ross Finnie, the environment and rural development minister at Holyrood, declared rural Scotland “open for business”. Underlying the tourism problems – and central to much of the rural-versus-urban unease that the outbreak brought to the surface – was the situation with regard to wholesale and often ad hoc access closures. These were perhaps understandable in the confused and panicky early days of the crisis, but by April and May – and certainly into June and July – the sight of signs instructing people not just to stay out of livestock fields (which was entirely reasonable), but also out of arable fields, public parks and off open hillsides – caused much ill-feeling. This was especially the case given that the signage was often in direct breach of government and council advice. Indeed, your correspondent must declare an interest here, having been part of a small activist group which endeavoured to help unblock the access logjam during the late spring and early summer of 2001 – something to be discussed in more detail on another occasion. Again, the main recreational-access overseers in Scotland – such as the Mountaineering Council of Scotland – have not formally marked the tenth anniversary of FMD with any public statement. This might in part be due to a desire to quietly forget old horrors, but it could also be that the game-changing Land Reform Act (Scotland) of 2003 is assumed to have removed the risk of any new outbreak leading to similar access chaos. There is no doubt that the 2003 Act – influenced by the events of 2001 and introducing a “presumption of access”, confirming it as a right rather than a privilege – has made a huge and lasting difference in many regards and in many areas. But it also introduced an increased risk of complacency. No one in any sector wants another FMD outbreak in this or any lifetime – but if it does happen, then the idea that there won’t again be Keep Out signs nailed to gateposts, and estate workers patrolling the upper end of glens warning off visiting walkers and climbers, is surely naïve. That, however, is also something to be discussed another time. For now, best to simply be glad that the hellish situation of ten years ago – and the massive effect it had on great swathes of society, both rural and urban – is not the situation we have now.Find out about donating to The Caledonian Mercury
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