British farmers' crisis leaves city dwellers unmoved

While Britain's countryside is in chaos from foot-and- mouth, the disease barely disturbs London, finds PAUL GREGORY, a former Herald reporter.

A million animals have been killed or are facing slaughter and the tourism industry is expected to lose up to $35 billion, but to Londoners the foot and mouth crisis is out of sight and barely in mind.

The pyre smoke does not reach the capital's bars and offices, so conversation is as usual on football and the latest EastEnders development.

In the rare instances when the disease does enter conversation, it centres on inconvenience rather than disaster - the month-long delay in the general election, disruption to the six nations rugby competition, lost weekends in the Lake District.

"I've got a relative who's affected by it," said Andy, a Welshman working in London. "But it's hard to escape from the thought that it's something that's happened out in the country."

The Masai, a cattle-keeping tribe in Kenya, have expressed more concern about foot and mouth's livestock-destroying effects. Representatives have volunteered their own expertise - and a cow urine and salt remedy - for combating the blight they call oloirobi.

Londoners are insulated from foot and mouth not only by geography, but by their restaurant menus and supermarket freezers. What they eat has not been affected. The meat aisles are a bit more international because of imports, but supermarkets had several weeks' worth of British beef, pork and lamb as a buffer for themselves and customers.

Any price rises have been slight and, as slaughterhouses are rapidly relicensed, things will only improve. Fears of shortages, ransom prices and long-term changes in the British diet have proved groundless.

New Zealand lamb purchases are up, but this is customary at this time of year. The Tesco and Sainsbury supermarket chains have reported at best minor supplementary upward blips in their Kiwi meat sales.

However politically sound it was to forgo marketplace trumpeting of the disease-free status of the New Zealand beast, the producer marketing boards seem to have missed a trick. The supply hole, never significant, is steadily shrinking but, more important, randomly sampled carnivores here have said they would have responded to advertising overtures.

"I think your guys might have missed out there," said James, grocery shopping in Covent Garden.

"We know it's good already, but in the early part of the crisis we would have bought a lot more, had it been in our faces. Perhaps you shouldn't have played so fair."

But if Londoners' lack of sympathy for the country is one thing, their frustration at not being able to tramp over it is another. Walking tracks and national parks all over the country are closed, and money-spinning events such as the Cheltenham Festival have been cancelled. Weekend cottage deposits are being refunded everywhere.

Brian Galbraith, who runs just the sort of stylish restaurant sojourning Londoners would visit, near the infected area of Chipping Norton in the West Midlands, said: "We normally get a lot of passing trade, people coming through the town on their way to the country. But people are staying away because of the disease."

Not only Londoners either. Tourists leaving hotels and parks vacant are currently costing the tourism industry 100m ($NZ 355m) a week. Scotland has enlisted former 007 Sean Connery to try to convince Americans not to boycott British holidays.

It will be a hard task, even for Bond.

Herald Online feature: Foot-and-mouth disaster

World organisation for animal health

UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

The European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease

Pig Health/Foot and Mouth feature

Virus databases online