schweinepest is known as classical swine fever in the UK, there was on outbreak recently which many pig farmers are only just recovering from. Another reason that this F&M epidemic is so badly timed.

The reason for slaughtering and burning when most animals would recover is the virulence of the disease. If it was allowed to run its course it would sweep the length & breadth of the country in a few months, and infect practically every cloven hooved beast in the UK. Slaughtering and burning is considered the most effective, in fact the only, way to hope to control it and limit its spread.

People are having to watch their life's work, sometimes the sum of 2 or 3 generations work, go up in smoke. Irreplaceable bloodlines will be lost forever. Let's hope the government finally do something to rationalise food production in the UK, the supermarket's stranglehold is broken, and consumers start to think a bit further than the cheapness of their sunday roast.