Dear Editor,
You are to be congratulated on your front-page spread and associated news and comment today - even tho' it might be said to be too little too late.
At the time of the last foot-and-mouth outbreak I was a Lecturer in the Faculty of Agriculure at University of Reading - when it was surely understood that movement restriction orders were intended to prevent movement of animals to market or from one flock or herd to another - not to prevent movement of animals from field to field, even across public roads; that is merely to prevent cross-infection from one flock or herd to another. I have not checked the wording of the orders either for 1967 or 2001, but it is clearly reprehensible that the wording or interpretation this year should be so blindingly tight as to CAUSE the cruelty it is supposedly intended to prevent.
This seems to be yet another case of the recent spate of legislation (not confined to agriculture) introduced supposedly to produce 100% safety (never achievable) without regard to the possible (or probable) harm introduced in other areas by the safety measures themselves.
Yours sincerely,
E C Apling, Woodrising, Norwich