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Mr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire): I am sure that the House endorses the hon. Gentleman's faith in science, but the Government stated that 10 triplet areas were to be set up to study TB. However, so far only two such areas have been established. Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied with that?
Mr. Drew: I am not satisfied, as I believe that the priority is to develop solutions to the problem. However, I want to choose my words carefully. I understand--as I am sure the hon. Gentleman does--some of the reasons why it has proved more difficult than expected to get the trials under way. For example, there has been a great deal of opposition to and, at the same time, pressure for the drastic culling of badgers. Yet the difficult problem of bovine TB, which also affects milk industries in other countries, must be solved.
Mr. Letwin: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says about the difficulties associated with establishing the tests for bovine TB, but does he not understate the case slightly? Bovine TB is approaching the status of a huge crisis. Is not it necessary to ensure that all the stops are pulled out to implement the recommendations of the Krebs report as fast as the science permits? Surely no impediment should be allowed to delay that.
Mr. Drew: I do not disagree. All hon. Members have faith in the Krebs report, and in the Bourne group that has actioned it. However, I have always been somewhat sceptical about the possibility of producing speedy solutions. I wish it were that easy, but it is not--this is a very difficult problem. Although I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman, I urge caution when it comes to going full speed ahead with the trials. The question of how they should be implemented is not at all easy.
I have covered a wide range of the issues and paradoxes with which we must deal. We have to consider radical solutions, asking whether we have gone as far as we could. Some of us would argue that we have not done so when it comes to the centralisation of the food chain. Is it good, or should we encourage supermarkets to look back towards local supply and sourcing, which could benefit
everyone? We must reform the CAP. Dare I suggest that we need to see how it can be reformed for our national needs as well as for Europe as a whole?
We must remember that Europe is changing. In Poland yesterday, I saw some of the ways in which agriculture will seek to feed people in western Europe. Whether that is good or bad, it will happen and it will have an impact on us. I was told that a major processing company is investing in a new plant in Hungary which will dwarf some British processing. Whether or not we want that, it is happening. We cannot persuade ourselves otherwise.
Mr. Alasdair Morgan (Galloway and Upper Nithsdale):
I shall be brief because I do not want to take up too much of the Liberal Democrats' day.
One issue not addressed so far is the problem of fallen stock in the countryside. Some weekends ago, the Sunday Post--not, perhaps, a mass circulation newspaper down here, but one which percolates into the north of England--carried a picture of a farmer shooting lambs on his farm. We all know why farmers have been dragged into doing that, but the picture and the report omitted the next stage of the process--how farmers get rid of stock that dies or is shot.
Before BSE, the system was that the knacker--there were yards in many areas--would collect fallen stock. After collecting cattle, the knacker often picked up sheep for no charge. The cattle were taken back to the plant and stripped of usable material for pet food and other things. What the knacker could not dispose of, the renderer collected--even, in good times, paying for it. That material went to the renderer's plant to be disposed of as bonemeal or tallow. The system allowed and encouraged sensible disposal of fallen stock without damage to the environment. It also created some employment in rural areas.
Today, of course, the market of the renderers--for bonemeal and tallow--has almost totally disappeared, although some tallow may return. The renderer must now charge the knacker if he is to collect what the knacker disposes of. The knacker, who also faces high investment in pressure cookers if he is to produce for the pet food industry, must charge the farmer for the collection of fallen stock. Meanwhile, farmers are less able than ever they were to pay the charges that the knacker is imposing.
Farmers faced with the lowest incomes in generations--often negative incomes--will bury stock on their farms. As far as I can ascertain, provided that a farmer disposes of stock away from water courses, there is no regulation to stop him disposing of stock on his land, although the practice is banned in most other European Union countries. If fallen stock goes to the renderer, it is
classified as high-risk material, but if it stays on the farm, it is simply classed as agricultural waste. We may wish to ponder that anomaly.
One consequence is unemployment: knackers have gone out of business, and the one in my constituency closed some time ago. Then, there are consequences for both health and the environment. Other EU countries do not allow such burial. Recently, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency produced a report on the matter, which said:
We should not underestimate the scale of the problem. Figures are not available for the number of stock buried. We have passport and traceability systems, but traceability ends when the animal dies. No one knows what happens to animals then. In Dumfries and Galloway alone, I estimate that we dispose annually of 9,000 cattle and 36,000 sheep. The possible consequences of burying those animals in pits in the countryside are fairly horrible to contemplate.
Even if, suspending disbelief, we assume that we can continue to bury a large number of stock in the countryside without environmental problems, we still have to remember the effect on public perceptions. We are trying to get across the message that we have high-quality agriculture that we want to keep. How can we do that if we are burying large numbers of fallen stock in the countryside? Does the Minister see any prospect of a scheme for collecting fallen stock so that stock is picked up, without payment to the farmer, to be taken away and disposed of safely and in an environmentally sensitive way?
The pig industry receives virtually no support from the CAP. We have one of the world's most modern pig industries, but it is suffering burdens due to events outside the industry and bearing costs that are nothing to do with the industry. People in the industry believe that they face imports from regimes that are less strict, and labelling problems too. All that has combined to mean that pig farmers are going out of business. The remaining pig farmers must believe that the Government want to allow the industry to compete fairly with competitors abroad.
I am glad that we are debating agriculture and that another debate will be held shortly. Agriculture is important to the economies of many of our constituencies. Some 25 per cent. of gross national product produced in Dumfries and Galloway is tied up in agriculture. We heard earlier about structural funds, but the area receives almost three times as much from the common agricultural policy as from structural funds.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome):
In the brief time left, it is not possible to cover all the difficultiesof agriculture, but all of us who represent rural constituencies know the depth of the crisis--that is not an exaggeration--that affects not only agriculture, but the downstream industries. That is the crucial point. This is no longer about farmers. The people losing their jobs and going bankrupt in the first instance are the agricultural engineers, the people who do the books for farmers, and those who run the shops. This is fast escalating into a major economic downturn in rural areas.
"Fallen stock does not yet pose a problem but difficulties may be expected in future years due to cumulative effects of increased disposal. In view of the changing circumstances which are likely to lead to more on-farm burials and the unknowns relating to the environmental issues of larger-scale burials, it is recommended that alternatives to on-farm burial are encouraged."
I believe that the agency is being too mild in saying that there will be a problem and that we must do something once it arises. The time to do something is now--a lesson we should perhaps have learned from past agricultural crises.
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