FOOT and mouth disease will likely cost the taxpayer £2 billion, DEFRA Food and Farming minister Lord Whitty told sheep farmers.

And he told the NFU Sheep Conference that, "sheep farming will have to change."

At the conference he announced that the government would:

Adapt the Livestock Welfare Disposal Scheme so that it can act to prevent future welfare problems and environmental damage with lamb this autumn;

introduce a new regime for livestock movements in the autumn based on veterinary risk assessments;

make available a private storage aid scheme for sheep meat.

Lord Whitty said the total cost to taxpayers of the disease is likely to be over £2 billion and he added that no other industry would receive that level of support where there was no direct threat to public health and where the problem had been compounded by existing trading practices.

"The Government is committed to eradicating this disease and we are committed to these costs. But we must change this system for the future. We need a new regulatory framework; we need modern industry practices; never again can the taxpayer be obliged to pay costs which in other industries would be absorbed by the industry and its insurers.

"Sheep farming will have to change. In the long term, support from government and from the EU cannot be based on headage payments and production subsidies. The public interest is twofold: ensuring a competitive and healthy sheep sector - and we will help to modernise and restructure the industry and to make it safer through for example, the National Scrapie Plan - and in ensuring environmental objectives for our flocks and our landscape.

"Some farmers may be prepared to restock at a less intensive level than before, and we will encourage them to consider entering agri-environment schemes such as Countryside Stewardship or ESAs. Others might look at the possibility of converting to organic production, or consider making greater use of quality assurance linked to investment in marketing to obtain a higher premium for their produce; others might look at using some of their land for woodland, or diversifying into non-agricultural enterprises."

Updated: 10:03 Thursday, August 09, 2001