This has been allowed to happen before vaccination has taken place throughout the area and immunity built up in the North Eastern livestock.

Is there no common sense anywhere? In the farmers who should know better than to jeopardize this nation’s livestock or DEFRA for allowing importation into an area that was only allowed to vaccinate 10 days ago? It takes time for immunity to build up and cattle need two doses 21 – 28 days apart before this immunity begins to build [depending which vaccine is used].

I still believe that we are an Island and special care should be taken over importation.

Surely there is no single farming business so financially reliant on importing stock from a BT ridden zones that it is worth the risks to the entire industry?

I have said it before, this is a bluetongue mess, and complacency must not win. We have to unite, to vaccinate and not import from disease ridden areas.

Everyone has collective responsibility from the stakeholders, DEFRA, and each individual livestock farmer. Our livestock depend on us making the right decisions to keep them healthy and this includes not taking unnecessary risks such as importing without thinking through the consequences of such acts and the relevant policies.

NB: Bluetongue only affects livestock and does not affect people.

Added 9.20pm 11 Sept 08

For important information regarding import testing please read this ProMed commentary. More information can also be found at Warmwell.

The country is in a mess over the vaccinating programme, as devolved Scotland has decided so far not to vaccinate, despite the National Beef Association petition [please sign].

Wales and the north of England [ Cumbria and Northumberland ]are this month able to vaccinate and yet many individuals are dithering over whether to do so as they worry over potential trading difficulties with Scotland and other areas. However, in July, we were offered steers to buy from Lincolnshire and we turned them down as they were not vaccinated. The vendor was not bothered stating clearly that because others had vaccinated he did not need to. We have a lot of midges and whether there is BT around here or not*, we choose to vaccinate all our cattle and sheep, and we do not want to jeopardise our animals’ health and well-being by bringing in un-vaccinated ones. The new born calves get some immunity in the antibodies from the colostrum [first milk] until we are able to immunize them individually. [* DEFRA should do further testing across the country so we know if there is an underlying problem with BT infection or not. However the test must be able to discern the difference between either infection related antibodies or a stimulated response following vaccination. Clarification here]

Britain is a small country and to protect our livestock we need to be totally united, as we and all our livestock all reside TOGETHER on one island there should be one policy and devolution should be overruled.

Culicoides sonorensis, bluetongue disease biting midge

I’ve just heard that Bluetongue Disease has been found on a farm in Devon, not million miles from here.

‘A total of eight heifers at the farm in Tiverton have tested positive for the non-contagious virus.
The animals were among a consignment of 35 Holstein heifers imported from Germany within the last week.
The cases were detected by routine testing, which is carried out on all bluetongue susceptible animals arriving from continental Europe.’

So says the BBC online news. It goes on to say

‘The heifers were transported from a bluetongue protection zone in Germany to Devon, itself within a protection zone.
A Defra statement said: “It is not unexpected to find infected animals in the protection zone.
“There is no evidence to suggest that the virus is circulating between local midge and animal populations in the local areas.
“Full epidemiological investigations are underway.” ‘

I am very puzzled. Why weren’t the heifers tested before they left Germany?
And why ‘is it not unexpected to find infected animals in a protection zone’?

Are DEFRA forgetting they made the majority of England part of the protection zone so they could bend EU rules and allow a vaccination programme to be put in place? It was not, in the majority of counties, because there were infected midges and animals in those areas.

Could this be an experiment to see if the vaccine holds up under fire? Oh, oh those damn conspiracy theories! But remember we’ve all been told it only needs one midge to have a blood meal from an infected animal for the disease to go on the rampage.

I was beginning to feeling quietly confident that England’s firewall of vaccinated animals was giving us the protection we needed from the continental wind blown Culicoides midge. Arriving on our shores by its own volition is something we can do very little about, apart from vaccination and being prepared as best we can. But to import the disease? Now? When midges are at their hight? This takes the biscuit.

So, very well done someone out there. I hope you’re pleased with yourself. My nice little security blanket’s been stripped away. Maybe my worry is completely unfounded, I sure hope so.

sheep suffering with bluetongue disease

 Why, why, why do we import animals AND THEREFORE NASTY DISEASES in to this country, especially from an area with a known disease problem and we are still learning about this terrible disease and its effects?

We have good livestock in this country already [some of the best in the world], and other countries have import bans on live animals to protect their own industries. I am entirely with the Icelanders on this issue. Their Parliament decreed in 980AD that no imports of horses, and other livestock would be allowed, and this ruling still stands today. Icelandic animals may have developed a certain uniqueness over the last 1028 years, nevertheless they also have an enviable disease free status too.

Other countries also have restrictive import polices or outright bans from certain areas of the world and many are far better than us at policing the import of food, especially meat, through the airports. Why can’t the UK be better at all this, and try looking after ourselves for a change.

Today there are 2 reported case of BLUETONGUE disease in the south of England, both could have been prevented by not importing. Whatever were the farmers thinking?

More on this and  the regular update later…

PS For more indepth info regarding the outbreak and further in depth facts please go to Mary’s site 

We are behind. Due to bluetongue vaccination we decided to leave mucking out the cow palace until after giving the cattle their second dose. Bringing in and sorting out different groups of cattle is a mucky business so it seemed only sensible to wait.

no, unfortunately, it’s not trained to muck-out by itself…I jumped out to take the photo.

Today the forecast was for rain, which is perfect weather for mucking out. The mess made by the bobcat remains moist, doesn’t stick like chewing gum to the concrete and can be scraped off without use excessive amounts of expensive mains water.

To prepare the yard we first have to remove all gates and posts – about fourteen large gates and seven small. These are stacked outside and are pressure washed and disinfected once the yard is finished – the rain helps to soften and loosen the hard encrusted dung on them too.

I have mucking out with the bobcat down to a fine art and once I’ve cleared a good start area I motor through in a couple of hours. The tedious part is pressure washing and scraping – neither Olly nor I have found a quick, efficient method – it’s just a rather dreary slog.

Olly pressure washing

The farm is filled with the deep, rich sweet smell of wholesome organic farmyard manure, nothing like the acrid stench which often pervades the countryside. Ours is truly worth its weight in gold!

rich brown gold!

Innovent are supplying a total of 30 metres of their Barrfly Midge Barrier which will protect entrances to the cattle sheds from midge migration. We are delighted to be involved in this pioneering project.

Watch this space for latest updates!

It was hot and windy and oh-so-bright. Friday, last week. The sea spangled and sparkled in ten million dazzling triangles momentarily blinding the eye with strings of black blots gliding across a backdrop of shimmering rainbows.

We strolled slowly through the crowds, contented cats full of tapenade (a paste of olives, tuna, anchovy and capers), anchoïade (crushed anchovies in oil, served with raw vegetables), grand aioli (poached salt cod, with vegetables and aioli sauce), farci (aubergine, courgette, tomato, onion stuffed with a delicately perfumed forcemeat on a rich tomato sauce) and tourte (a pie of potatoes, onion and garlic bound together with cream and eggs, wrapped in cured ham and crumbly pastry, served with crème fraiche and salad) washed down with glasses of ice cold rosé, the palest of pale pink. We watched in relaxed companionship the remains of the morning’s fish market being packed away and listened to the harsh nasal twang of swarthy Marseillais fisher-folk as they hollered and shouted to one another across the port above the impatient revving traffic and gush of their flushing hoses. Little Camille, entranced by twinkling rainbow prisms caught in the cascade of cleaning water, ran, arms outstretched, trying to catch the elusive crystal drops. And a seagull shat on Benjamin.

In all the clamour I almost didn’t hear it. Insistent, irritated it brring-brringed, bring-brringed, brrringed against my hip. My phone! I pressed it firmly against one ear but even with my hand clamped tightly over the other could barely make out the faint voice at the other end.

“Mum…..bluetongue…we’m….ade….Devon now’s….red could…tion zone!”

“What? What? Olly, can’t hear…shout. Very noisy. What’s that? What? Ohmygod did you say we’re now a protection zone. Oh shit, oh no! Where is it? When did it happen? Have you phoned the vet? What did they say? Oh heavens. You’ll have to vaccinate. Is there any vaccine? What did you say the vets say? What? When? Hang on. Hang on, I’ll just find a hiding place. You want me to come home? Hang on.”

Eventually I got the gist of Olly’s call. We didn’t have bluetongue disease in Devon. The vaccination programme had been going so well they had now advanced the protection zone to Devon. Vaccine should be made available from the 26 May. Hoorah! This was good news, not the catastrophe I originally thought. I asked Olly to call the vets, confirm our stock numbers and get an idea of when the vaccine would be released. A couple of frustrating shouted calls later and we had a clearer idea of timing. The vaccine most probably wouldn’t be available until I was back.

We arrived back last night. I phoned the vets first thing this morning. My vaccine would be ready for collection after four this afternoon. I’ve got it. It’s in my fridge…and tomorrow, first thing, we’ll start bringing the stock back to begin our vaccination programme. Soon, but not just yet, I’ll breath a little more freely!

Innovents recent work at The Carrick on Loch Lomond and the latest Bluetongue project made the Business section of this weekends Sunday Herald in Scotland. Excerpt as follows:

“Glasgow -based Innovent (Scotland) Limited, founded by entrepreneur Bobby Motherwell, is also hoping to cash in on the scourge of Scotland.

A former ventilation engineer, Motherwell invented the Barrfly – alight, fabric-based ducting which creates an air curtain that cannot be penetrated by flying insects and can be fitted around outdoor structures, such as gazebos and covered patios. The device has been successfully installed at the Carrick Golf Club and Leisure Spa on the banks of Loch Lomond.

Helen Clarke, manager of the Claret Jug Restaurant at the Club, where the Barrfly has been installed, says: “Our guests can enjoy a glass of wine and the lovely views without being bothered.”

Motherwell extols the bottom line benefits that this protection affords: ” If this system allows pubs and hotels to keep serving outdoors for an extra four hours a day, the maths is very easy.”

Midges may be a nuisance to humans, but for livestock they can be deadly. There are hopes that the Midgeater and Barrfly technology that has proven effective in the tourism sector can be adapted to help to protect livestock across Scotland. Midges carry Bluetongue disease which kills sheep and occasionally cows. Texol and Innovent have already adapted their inventions to help relieve the threat to cattle. Nigel Miller, vice -president of NFU Scotland, said: “Combating bluetongue is our number one priority in light of the epidemic in Europe last year. This technology is an essential building block in ensuring we can control the disease.”

Miller explained that the Barrfly is being installed around farm buildings and midge-catching traps are helping to identify different kinds of midges, helping farmers to vaccinate efficiently and effectively”

For the whole article, follow the link at:http://www.sundayherald.com/business/businessnews/display.var.2295660.0.scotland_bites_back_with_devices_to_blitz_the_midge.php

For more information on our technology for controlling midges and mosquitos, contact us at info@innoventscotland.com or visit www.innoventscotland.com

She has also included three papers that you might find interesting

Bluetongue 1 Bluetongue 2 Bluetongue 3

Another link which you might also find informative is Farming on Sunday

If you have any questions about bluetongue the Institue of Animal Health have an email account iah.bluetongue@bbsrc.ac.uk. where your questions will be answered by one of the bluetongue group – the most appropriate person for the question.

Karin will be giving another talk in Cornwall at The Conference Hall, Duchy College, Rosewarne, Nr Camborne TR140AB on Thursday the 22nd May at 7.30pm. If it’s near enough to you I suggest to try to get there as her presentation really is superb.

I hope you find this useful. If there’s anything else you want to know I’ll see if I can help.

The good news is that I’m in contact with Karin from Pirbright who is keen to help and is willing put some information together for the blog. Though due to the warmer weather over the past week she has been extremely busy and won’t be able to do much before the weekend.

But, with a bit of luck, by next week I should have pulled together some useful sources of information that you will hopefully find helpful.

Japnese whale slaughter occurs in Australia’s back yard every year on the basis of scientific slaughter. Over a thousand whales have to be hunted and cruelly murdered for japan to be able to conduct their research! Yet the meat is sold commercially to japanese restuarants and coastal villages. In response bluetongue brewery has developed a controversial ad that highlights the cruelty of whale slaughter. The company’s aim was to show what the owners of the company really valued and stood for. Life in general.

wild crab apple blossom

Don’t despair I’m still in the process of getting pdfs of the Bluetongue presentations. Hopefully either copied onto CDs or emailed to me. It’s taking a little longer than anticipated, but they will be here.

Meanwhile the countryside has undergone a transformation in the last seventy-two hours. Flowers and foliage are burgeoning…by the hour – the minute – the second. Just a few days ago I was bemoaning the lack of early purple orchids – now they are everywhere. A battalion of slender purple-magenta spears guard a corner of the Hatherleigh road; further along a sunlit gathering cluster exotically, decked in shades of rose-mauve, intense red-violet and faded purple-pinks. Truly a meeting of sumptuous beings, their pages tiny dog violets peeping through the formal rosettes of glossy-green spotted leaves.

early purple orchid

Verges explode in a sudden froth of cow parsley.

The soft pink-white flowers of the quince tree open like stars. A wild crab apple is a vision of blossom at the entrance to Scadsbury where heather-pink lousewort carpets the field between wet fronds of mosses and shoots of purple moor grass.

common lousewort

Not only are my eyes bombarded at every turn by colour, growth, life, but my ears are assailed by a hundred different bird songs. I’m not nearly good enough; I can’t decipher the many different tunes. I need Robert to point out the blackcap, the willow warbler, the coal tit and tree pipit. Yesterday garden warblers returned as did our first resident swallow and, at last, an orange tip butterfly appeared, to be quickly followed by others.

Yet amongst this achingly beautiful confusion of life, a tragedy. This morning, early, in the softest soft green drizzle, a ewe cast herself. Brutally split by ravens her guts spilled in glistening slippery warm pink ribbons across the green grass; eyes empty bloodied sockets; her mouth, tongue and tail cavernous dark black-red wounds slowly oozing bloody streams. Alone in the field by her side her lamb called and called and called.

]]> http://locksparkfarm.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/inspired-bythe-midge/ Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:14:01 +0000 paula http://locksparkfarm.wordpress.com/2008/04/22/inspired-bythe-midge/

Enough, enough. Enough of the doom and gloom. I want to be cheerful and enjoy the newness happening out there. A bit of lightness and brightness to feed the soul, top up our optimism and give us the energy to face the future.

Now here’s a thought. Midges are insects. Flowers are designed to attract insects; therefore without insects we wouldn’t have the glorious diversity of flowers we anticipate and marvel at each year. In effect insects are enriching our lives too. How curious is nature? Robert is quite keen I write a poem. Something along the lines of
‘Where the midge sucks, there suck I
In a cowslip bell I lie…’ Cowslip, cow’s lip? Ummm, maybe not. I’ll work at it.

But this evening I’m off. My gorgeous friend who winkles me out of the farm and takes me to opera, theatre and ballet – recently Matthew Bourne’s exuberant, colour extravaganza Nutcracker – is treating me to a Seth Lakeman concert at Plymouth Uni.

Meanwhile I leave you with some glorious insect inspired flowers just on our doorstep!

We shuffle in our seats, steal surreptitious glances at one another, clear our throats and half smile. A rustle of whispers stirs through the listeners.

…it’s going to be devastating! Don’t underestimate for a second what effect this disease will have on your stock, you and your business.”

Jaws drop. We sit stock still. He has everyone’s undivided attention: Marco Zerhoef, the vet from Holland who has hands-on experience of dealing with Bluetongue, the disease that’s decimated the livestock industry in much of Northern Europe.

He continues “In Holland we were unprepared. We’d heard of it yes, but we thought the handful of cases that bubbled up in 2006 and then died down was the end of it. A one off, nothing to get excited about. How wrong we were! In 2007 the first cases in Holland occurred in July, but we misdiagnosed them as sunburn – it had been an unusually hot spring – and photosensitisation. We correctly identified the disease too late and by August nearly every farm in our practice had contracted Bluetongue. The disease continued to snowball with unprecedented effects.”

He went on to explain what we could expect. Showed us images of cows and sheep; oedematous, encrusted with lesions, lame and unable to drink or walk; and calves, malformed, mummified, suffering severe encephalitis and other unusual deformities. Youngsters that failed to thrive. Depressing graphs, facts and figures.

The only thing they could do was nurse the sick and dying, helping to relieve the excruciating symptoms. It’s an awful disease, killing 40% of sheep and causing long-term damage to those that survive and to cattle.

“You” he carried on “have a chance. Have a chance to be a little more prepared. And a chance, maybe, to get in front of it with the vaccine.”

A Dutch dairy farmer gave his first hand experiences of coping with Bluetongue in his well kept milking cows, calves and heifers and the ongoing effects the disease is continuing to have on his stock and business. Needless to say, milk production has been severely reduced; his followers lack growth and are giving just a small percentage of their expected yield, his cows are difficult to get in calf, calves die in utero, and so on.

Karin Darple, a vet from Pirbright and a Bluetongue expert who has been working on the disease and vaccine, gave her presentation next – and it was superb. What she doesn’t know about Bluetongue isn’t worth knowing. She had very practical advice on how to cope with the disease, whether and when insecticides would be appropriate, housing versus the outdoors and much, much, more.

Karin would like to see 100% take up of the vaccine as soon as it hits the shelves, but EU legislation prevents this! Vaccine can only be given in Protection Zones where the disease has already struck, not in the surrounding Surveillance Zones. Karin couldn’t stress enough that speed is of the essence: to stand a chance of avoiding the devastating effects of the disease we must vaccinate ahead of it – we must prevent the virus from getting established.

There was far too much useful information to put in this post. I have asked my vet for pdf copies of all three presentations. Those that I’m able to, I’ll link to from my blog. If they are too large I’d be willing to email you a copy if you are interested. Leave me some contact detail in the comment section and I’ll get back to you. Please also look at the Warmwell site and the link Jane Barribal left for more information.

bluetongue 4

The infuriating niggle-niggle that keeps irritating and scratching persistently away in my mind’s eye is ‘you!-you-ostrich-head-in-the-sand’ and ‘maybe-if-I-look-from-behind-my-hands-it-won’t-happen’ as well as the ‘if-I-squint-I-might-not-really-see-what-I’m-looking-at’. I don’t know if you experience them…those irksome posters that march across your field of vision making sure you are perpetually aware of a subject you really don’t want to think about. This particular no-no is, of course, Bluetongue. And no, it won’t go away however much I will it.

As I breathe deeply, sigh and marvel at the fabulous weather of the last few days, another part of me is scanning for midges and hoping that the cold, frosty mornings and chilly Easterly wind might give us a few more weeks grace. Might, miracles of miracles, allow us to evade the next month of certain infestation and infection. At least, get us a little bit nearer the promised vaccination.

I’m itching – operative word here – to get the cows out. But if cold wet rain, sleet and snow – in fact a ‘fimble-winter’ – is the recipe for that miracle, well, bring it on!

The day before yesterday the midges were biting…and hard. The cows were careering about, bellowing and kicking; a heavily fleeced sheep cast herself itching; and the rams decided that the persistent irritation obviously originated from one of the others which resulted in a bloody battle. I also frenziedly scratched and pulled at my hair. It hasn’t been too bad since then.

This evening I’m attending a talk arranged by my vets on Bluetongue. The speakers will be a Dutch vet who has first hand experience, Intervet, the vaccine manufactures and possibly a vet from Animal Health. I wait to see what, if anything, I can do.

Now here’s a thing. I had a fit of the giggles. Actually it was probably a touch of mini-hysteria; the uncontrolled, raucous, thigh-slapping, tears-pouring-down-face kind, coloured by total disbelief. Wishful thinking there – what I would hope to be total disbelief.

In this week’s New Scientist under the heading ‘Bluetongue’s Winter Warmer‘ we were told about the distinct possibility of bluetongue virus overwintering in the unborn calf cosseted and protected by the cosy bubble of bovine uterine warmth.

And as those hungry veracious biting midges reappear (the end of the non-vector period was the 15th March) these bonny babies would become a delicious fresh source of the bluetounge virus. Hey-presto! Yup, you have it in one.

Pirbright suggest there should be additional controls targeted at newborn animals. Now, me-wonders, what on earth have they in mind? No vaccine around yet. Could only be one other thing.

And if that’s not sinister enough – listen to this…the only bluetongue virus ever seen to cross the placenta of infected mothers to infect their foetuses was a laboratory-adapted strain used in experiments with sheep in the 70s.

Ring any bells? Shades of last summer’s FMD fiasco? Afterall the great and the good have been wondering how the BTV8 strain gained such an unshakable foothold in northern Europe.

Maybe they now have their answer.

My fears have been confirmed. We are in the bluetongue surveillance zone. I arrived home this evening checked the answer phone and there was the man from DEFRA with his recorded message – in a dead-pan voice he stated ‘some, part, or all of my holding now came within the bluetongue surveillance zone and…’

Below is an excerpt from an email sent to me by a fellow farmer in Norfolk. I won’t add anything. The words tell their own story – poignant and thought provoking.

‘Our stock are our livelihood, such as it is, we run an organic beef suckler herd and 700 laying hens, and work long hours trying to make a living, but that’s life: farmings’ shit at the moment, but what else do we do?’

Last year they were hit by restrictions from both FMD and Avian flu (twice), having just, in the very nick of time, saved their entire suckler herd from drowning during the floods they heard the news about bluetounge. In her own words…

‘Just after that Bluetongue was detected, and we thought Now What!!? how do we deal with this? what are the symptoms? is it contagious? does it cross species? and the media had a field day; yet again; (They virtually camped in the area during the first Avian Flu outbreak- 9 miles from us) and there was no clear information, later on the farmers that had cows with the disease said there were few symptoms to tell they were affected, but since then our vet has been trying to keep abreast of the disease, and how it will affect cows in the future, and it seems as though some of the affects of the disease is to cause infertility in some and may cause calves to be born with abnormalities. I can only liken that to thalidomide in pregnant women. Follow that up again with Liver Fluke and a blasted fox getting my five 12 week old chicks from off the lawn, and traumatising their mother half to death. (she spent hours in the pond to avoid getting caught), and one might wonder why we carry on!’

She ends…

‘Yes, you bet we’re worried, but we can’t allow it to take over our lives. We just take heart that life here, at the moment, goes on in the age old tradition, and we are thankful that at least this year we have some beautiful calves to see bounding and gambolling about, and we will worry when the time comes (and hopefully it won’t). I’ve got enough grey hairs, and F has none, he has pulled all his out over the years!!’

So how will farms and good, caring people like this cope? Beef animal are already making a loss of £139 per animal. Not to mention the heartache caused from tending sick and dying stock. We will loose those very farms and farmers that are trying their best to produce high quality food from healthy, happy, animals whilst caring as best they can for the environment.

After the success of their outing last week I decided to take the cows up to silage barn again today. Still aggravatingly itchy from mites I felt they would benefit from the fresh air and sun on their backs. This week they were ready for me. Gone was the spontaneous joyful and scatty hiccupping down the lane, instead there was a wall of solid red determination! Ranks mustered, eyes forward, they surged as one. Occasionally a foot soldier would break ranks to snatch hastily at a particularly flavoursome plantain, a bind of ivy or a clump of rank, wet grass – otherwise they were single minded in their resolve – they were going out to grass. When we stopped at silage barn it took a lot of persuading and cajoling to get them through the gate into the yard. This was not the game plan. Yet once they knew my determination was every bit as strong as theirs they conceded, eventually, and didn’t have too bad a day. Returning to the cow palace for tea they ambled along quickening their pace as they got nearer home – there, in full view of the young stock, they milled around the pulling at grass, brambles, whatever was to tongue, and shouting, with mouths full, about the heavenly day they’d had out to grass.

Not to put a dampener on the glorious day I will leave my next post about bluetongue till tomorrow.

midges flying over hanaborough moor 7th february 2008

Bluetongue. Twenty-four different BT strains identified so far each needing a strain-specific vaccine. This disease is expected to become endemic in Britain. There will be no compensation. Vaccination will be the only way of protecting livestock. Our native and indigenous breeds of cattle and sheep will be more susceptible to the disease having never encountered it before.

Bluetongue. The BTV-8 strain is now affecting the Eastern and South-eastern counties of the UK with the surveillance zone having been extended into some parts of Dorset. DEFRA are expecting different strains of the disease to arrive along the South West coast from France this spring and spread northwards.
In the UK midges have not been killed off during the mild winter and are already flying. They travel two kilometres a day in normal weather conditions and much further in strong headwinds. It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out how long it will take to reach Devon.

Bluetongue. It is hoped, according to DEFRA, there will be enough BTV-8 vaccine ready to carry out vaccination in the South East during May. There is no indication of a more comprehensive vaccination programme this year, next year or ever. The costs of developing vaccines for the 24 various strains and for implementing a countrywide vaccination programme will be staggering. Will DEFRA or the government be willing to help with the costs? I’m not so sure.

I’m shit scared and worried. It seems extraordinary to me that some people appear to be acting as if it’s a mild inconvenience. This disease is potentially devastating; especially to an already beleaguered livestock industry. And I don’t know if I have the heart or energy left to cope with a farm of sick and dying animals. This could be the death-knoll for Locks Park Farm.

Twinkling fairies? Or the harbinger of devastation?

Dec. 3, 2007. Rumor of high level Idaho meeting to conspire against recent bighorn sheep victories.

It was true, and the so the whole thing emerged on Jan. 7 as a consensus group meeting attended by a number of groups, but the agenda was tightly controlled.

Once again what is so fascinating is how little stockgrowers are concerned about passing livestock disease to wildlife.

The Western Watersheds Project blog has an interesting account of the group’s first meeting, at least I find it appallingly entertaining. Read “Bighorn Meeting.” WWP blog.

- – - – -

Similarly why is it that the ag lobby’s kept agency, APHIS, is doing so little about bluetongue which is a grave threat to whiletailed deer, pronghorn and a number of ruminant livestock.?

This matters both in “Europe”, just now ground under the fascist Brussels heel, and also its occupied territories such as Britain.

Economic and independent agricultural strength needs to be maintined so that someone, most likely the UK since we have been forced to successfully estrange the Americans from us by running away from Iraq (so they won’t come to help us any more over anything - why ever should they any more? We have, though our tainting by socialism, become what the Vikings called “Oath-Breakers”) can reconstruct liberal national regimes on the European Continent, in the Anglosphere’s image of such things, after the EUSoviet has collapsed in ruin and starvation, as it for sure will do.

Libertarians ought to be concerned that the infrastructure of agriculture in Britain, which can’t exactly be put back in a day if stuff is all gone and we are a weed-and-insect-and-rare-orchid-strewn-theme-park instead, and which ultimately depends on free people freely choosing to grow and rear stuff, on MANAGED GROUND, should not be destroyed.

 Today, I have read some surprising stuff on Eurorealist, a Yahoogroups group. I do not know how to point you to a “group” on here because I am a bumpkin, so just look for “Eurorealist” on “Yahoogroups” – your are all good bloggeeks and blogo-trons. Christ knows why it calls itself “Yahoo”, it just seems silly and rather childish to me, but there you are, perhaps I am too old. Wasn’t it something you shouted in 1993 when you had just killed a great big pixellated socialist nazi monster spitting fire, on “Doom” or “Heretic”? Well, anyway…

There is a thread about the Foot and Mouth epedemic of 2001, plus connections to later events. the best thing I can do is reprint it here as it stood last on my machine;

PLease see my comments later on…………

Hi,
“Despite this engineered calamity it was Government
operatives, who due to incompetence? once again
released the virus in the summer of 2007 – leading to
further damage to the British livestock industry – was
this yet again deliberate?”Judging from everything that has happened and their
unwillingness to vaccinate, I would say yes.
LinaAsk yourselves the Occum’s Razor Question  (invariably the simplest answer tends to to be the correct one:
How did Britain ever get along prior to The EU’s CAP, MAFF & DEFRA?
Please list every single mass extermination of animals in Britain prior to
our membership of the centralised and damaging EUropean soviet.

IS IS OUR LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY BEING DELIBERATELY SABOTAGED?
AT A MEETING IN 1998 IN EU: A Decision was taken to destroy the British
livestock industry (No Ministers attended).Information came from secretaries attending taking notes. PURPOSE? Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Romania and other countries from the former communist block brought into the main body of the EU (2004). Needed to contribute to the EU ‘pot’
but were unable to pay their way & make a financial contribution. It was decided that Poland would supply pigs, bacon,
and porcine products. Slovakia and Slovenia would be bovine , milk and beef – and
Hungary, Romania etc. would supply sheep.

November 2000. MAFF approached T G Norman,
Longtown, Carlisle, for ‘burn timber’.

December 4th 2000. Animal activists visit Heddon on the Wall farm, Northumberland.

January 18th 2001. 430,000 Euros allocated to F & M vaccine.

Early February 2001. EU begins checking F & M vaccine stocks.

SURPRISE! 19th February 2001 Foot and Mouth discovered in Essex abattoir.TYPE: Pan Asian type ‘O’, a new strain NEVER before
seen in the wild.
Likely to have been developed in a laboratory. TWO
labs in the UK -
Purbright and Porton Down.

It is understood that Animal Rights activists had ‘assisted’ links to the Government Labs.
It is confirmed that Animal Rights activists from Norfolk visited Heddon on the Wall farm.
 
It must be remembered the F&MV outbreak
orchestrated in 2001 led to
the needless slaughter of an estimated 12-14 M
animals, mostly perfectly healthy. Despite this engineered calamity it was Government
operatives, who due
to incompetence? once again released the virus in
the summer of 2007 -
leading to further damage to the British livestock
industry – was this
yet again deliberate? 
September 2007, Bluetongue discovered in cattle. 
October 2007, Bluetongue spreads from cattle to
sheep. Peter King,
NFU’s chief livestock adviser, said “The biggest
concern is the economic
impact this is having on the price of meat when we
farmers were already
struggling with foot and mouth and low market
 prices. It could have
serious implications on the supply of British lamb.
This particular
strain of virus we have here is very different from
the kind that is
found in North Africa” (ST report 14/10/07)October 15th, report considered to make UHT milk
ONLY type available
to:

(a). reduce CO2 emissions by reduction in
refrigeration plant.
b). reduced by half UK livestock.

Source: Report Today programme R4 15th October 2007.
This will of course lead to a huge increase in  transport costs, as the
sub standard (not fresh) UHT is trucked to Britain -
a Country which,
until EU interference & The CAP, was all but self
sufficient in both
meat and dairy products.

> DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS! Paper prepared with acknowledgment to Greg Lance-Watkins. More detailed information available at:
WWW.SilentMajority.co.uk
<http://www.silentmajority.co.uk/>

Click on
 Foot in Mouth from Menu Harry M Randall 15/10/2007YOU MAY find the clip of Interest:http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-66755815706353489

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-1155273392140890250

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=118230605129915010 

Now, I am the last person to be swayed by conspiracy-theories, given as I am to fiendishly enjoying taking part in the public flaying and later, slower, slaying, of 9/11 “truthers”, wherever I may find them. But on this food-matter I remember at the time, in early 2001, how neatly the destruction of many, many thousands of “small stock farming enterprises” fitted in with the metro-socialist view of “Britain” and “The Countryside”. There were no votes for Blair and his babes in “The Countryside”, or at least not very many (so these isolated “new” Labour voters wouldn’t matter, not affecting the many small  (new labour) Rotten Boroughs in the “cities”) and so whatever the countryside did that was rather smelly, and sort of unfamiliar to Notting Hill, would have to go.

If it was convenient for Blair’s masters in the EU to “plan” another future for the “Countryside of the English Regions”, then he would go along with it.

Moreover, destroying the primary capacity of the British Isles to produce useful protein-based food for itself would, in the medium term, strengthen the grip of Brussels on our Windpipe IF we should ever decide to LEAVE. (Remember, they NEED OUR MONEY, or else socialism in Europe is dead – and that means VERY dead.)

Yet again, I see the UK as the last bastion of liberalism – and therefore a hope of any form of minimal-statism continuing to exist after the USA (understandably) retreats back into Isolationism having been pilloried (yet again) over Iraq and Iran and what will surely follow on.

The EU sees this too, ’coz the sum-total of the IQs of all those fascist enarques cannot be exactly zero.

They have to break us in our Island or lose the war.

All over again.

Oh, well, here we go, all over again, all over again. Dear God, I beg You; will this battle ever end? How Deep is Your Cup, that we have to drink from? 

Got to unblog now as I have a long-running dispute about knex, between my two children, to sort out.  

It’s a pain that probably doesn’t bother the Disease Naming Authority (entirely fictional). ‘Foot and Mouth’, ‘Bluetongue’(which dominated news last week) and the infinitely creative ‘Mad Cow Disease’ must have taken ages to come up with. The last inspired creation comes from Australia, the land where a brown snake is called a Brown Snake, a green snake found in trees is called a Green Tree Snake and a snake found around Lake Cronin is fairly likely to be a Lake Cronin Snake. I know we claim we want less spin, more plain talking, but don’t those names grate your boobs? I mean, don’t they just widdle on your batteries? Personally, I get the urge to shout: ‘Put some effort in, man! Where’s your pride?’

But, then, Australian naming conventions are probably still better than the disingenuousness of most of the advertising to which we subject ourselves. Modern advertising is the antithesis of Australian naming conventions, a sea of red-herrings. Want to sell toilet paper? Impossibly clean velvety puppies are a natural focus. A name for a detergent you’ll use in the most menial and unmagical of household tasks? Fairy. Want to be as attractive, powerful and successful as a jet-pilot? Eleven blades on your razor are not enough! You need a twelfth.

So we trundle off to the supermarkets, looking to buy better lives (all the while telling our non-Christian friends that something is missing from their lives, as if filling the emptiness with kitchen units, new and improved dishwasher tablets and nightlights that smell like flowers was fundamentally better than using sex and booze) – confident that at least there are some staples that can’t be messed with, that can’t be oversold. Like milk.

And that’s where we’d be wrong, because cow-juice was in the news last week for just that very reason. It seems that supermarkets have been fixing the price of milk and cheese, at a cost of £270 billion to consumers. And last week the Office of Fair Trading (and I do so love those guys) threatened hundreds of millions of pounds in fines for Asda, Morrisons, Safeway, Sainsbury’s and Tesco, who the OFT have accused of colluding on dairy price increases (along with dairies) between 2002 and 2003. At the time, the hike in the price of milk, butter and cheese was sold to consumers as a move to benefit dairy farmers. In fact, that revenue didn’t quite ‘make it through’ to farmers, as one spokesman for retailers admitted to the BBC. Ultimately, consumers paid more and supermarkets benefited most.

Christians are often urged to be wary of cheap goods, to question who is bearing the weight of cheaper prices. This message is good. But if that is where it ends, if we assume that more expensive goods will naturally be better for labourers and the earth; if our energy carries us only as far as the price-tag and not the system where massive businesses can dictate prices not only to foreign producers but to educated, empowered British farmers, we are lying when we call ourselves conscious, critical or ethical.

And here’s a good man, making a good point to an obscenely patronising woman: