THIS should have been one of the best days of the year. The opening of the Great Yorkshire Show is eagerly anticipated by farmers, exhibitors and the thousands of visitors who never miss this spectacle. It is an event that revels in regional tradition yet energises the entire community.

Today, however, the vast acreage of the showground was largely empty. In place of the festival of farming was a meeting where leaders of our shattered agriculture industry were considering how to pick up the pieces. The celebration has become a wake.

Where foot and mouth has abated, life is slowly getting better. Much of the Lake District, for example, has reopened, and its tourist trade might yet salvage some of the summer.

But North Yorkshire is the epicentre of the continuing outbreaks of foot and mouth. After six months of the disease, the county is back to square one. Farmers are furious that the Government is sidelining their suffering.

Although happy to see the back of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, they are yet to be impressed by its successor. The much-vaunted Depart-ment of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, headed by Margaret Beckett, has so far been afflicted by the same communication problems as MAFF. Terrible tales abound about farmers who only became aware of a local cull when they saw the slaughtermen at work in neighbouring fields; or ministry vets travelling from infected farm to farm, possibly spreading the disease.

The Rural Renaissance meeting at the showground was making clear the ongoing devastation to farmers and tourism traders, who are losing everything. It threw into sharp relief the inadequate ministerial attention now devoted to this disaster.

Mrs Beckett is new to the job. Her reluctance to comment on North Yorkshire's renewed despair has led to accusations that she is being evasive.

It is time she got a grip. Foot and mouth might be off the agenda at dinner party tables in New Labour's Islington heartlands, but it continues to ruin lives and livelihoods in Yorkshire.

Updated: 10:37 Tuesday, July 10, 2001