A war-weary ROB SIMPSON, press officer for Yorkshire and the North East NFU, returns from the foot-and-mouth slaughter on Yorkshire farms to ask: where are the causes for optimism?

IT has been essential for the disease control workers to develop a self-defence mechanism which allows them to return each day to the campaign.

I have developed a degree of cynicism: it has helped me cope with the daily heart-wrenching stories and the massive upheaval in the countryside.

But when I speak to a distraught farmer, or when I catch the sight of new-born lambs destined for imminent slaughter gambolling around fields, the stark realities are hammered home.

It may also not be a great surprise that the British public has become tired of this four-month-old tragedy; worn out by the acres of newsprint and seemingly endless TV and radio footage. The campaign has been compared on a number of occasions to a war, and I cannot recall a story generating more media coverage in recent times.

I think of myself now as a bit of hardened campaigner. Not, obviously, in the bloody tasks of the slaughter and disposal teams, but in communicating what is happening on farms across Yorkshire and the North East.

And I have seen that as the disease is brought under control in one part of the country, it simultaneously takes a grip in another.

North Yorkshire has rapidly taken on the unenviable position of being one of the worst disease hotspots in the UK, while the virus continues to head east and south towards the major pig production areas. Pigs are 3,000 times more infectious than sheep, so the whole industry is holding its breath and praying the disease can be stopped in its tracks.

My pessimistic ramblings this month have been born from working in an industry which appears to have lurched from an economic crisis into what must be the world's worst and most costly outbreaks of foot-and-mouth in history.

Is there, I ask myself, any reason to be optimistic for the future of agriculture?

The Government continues to talk about a 'better future for the countryside' and of sustainable farming - two aims which we would all endorse.

But what the Government will actually achieve remains in doubt.

And we must all wait some time before the priorities of the newly created Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) become apparent.

That farmers need to continue to embrace new opportunities focused on the environment, biodiversity and non-food activities is undeniable. But without the core income, derived by the majority of North Yorkshire farmers from agricultural produce, none of these activities could possibly happen.

And many farmers argue that despite producing food to the highest animal welfare, environmental protection and food safety standards, their profits continue to sink into the red.

So what does the farming and rural community desperately need?

There is an overwhelming need for DEFRA to work with farmers and the rural community to achieve its aims and goals.

There are many opportunities in the countryside that need to be positively encouraged and fostered, rather than held back or strangled in red tape and bureaucracy.

And just perhaps, you never know, in another year, I may be writing about a re-vitalised rural economy bursting at the seams with fresh ideas; a rural economy attracting more customers and money than ever before.