Eco-terrorists may have planted FMD plague - farmers

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Eco-terrorists may have planted FMD plague - farmers

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AUSTRALIA: May 16, 2001

 

 

CANBERRA - British and U.S. farm leaders claim " lunatic " eco-terrorists may

be behind recent devastating outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain

and Europe.

 

 

Most experts at an international farm conference in the Australian capital

Canberra believe foot-and-mouth disease broke out in Britain from animal

consumption of swill, possibly containing contaminated meat scraps brought

in by travellers.

But some farm leaders in the International Federation of Agricultural

Producers (IFAP) also believe extreme animal rights activists may have

planted Britain's foot-and-mouth disease epidemic in an effort to bankrupt

intensive farming.

 

" I've never ruled eco-terrorism out, that's obviously something you must

think of, " Ben Gill, president of Britain's National Farmers Union, told

Reuters.

 

U.S. farm leaders are also considering the possibility that bio-terrorists

may try to infiltrate the disease into U.S. farmlands.

 

They have no proof - no secret videos of camouflaged environmental activists

lurking in bushes with suspicious spraycans, or planting contaminated food

in cow troughs.

 

Gill pointed to a coincidence of outbreaks of foot-and-mouth in Britain's

northeast and swine fever in East Anglia within six months of each other.

Both diseases were Asian strains.

 

Gill admits unintentional spread of the disease is more likely than the work

of terrorists.

 

EXTREME THREATS

 

But he also says intensive farming faces extreme threats. He said police had

warned him several times of death threats from radical animal rights groups

in Britain.

 

" We've got plenty of lunatic groups in Britain, " he said.

 

" The logic would be, how can we destroy meat consumption? Discredit it in

the public's eyes by creating health scares. That would make them (meat

producers) unprofitable and make them go bankrupt, " he said.

 

Dean Kleckner, immediate past president of the largest U.S. farm group, the

American Farm Bureau Federation, agreed that extremists could have caused

the sudden outbreaks of disease.

 

An unofficial U.S. representative at the conference of 70 farm leaders from

26 countries, Kleckner described agri-terrorism as " a great threat " . The

U.S. farm sector did not send an official delegation.

 

" The U.S. is such a big country with unprotected borders all over, if

somebody really wanted to bring in a disease like foot-and-mouth, or

anything else, I think they could do it. I think it's just a matter of time

before we get it in the United States, " said Kleckner, now chairman of a

grassroots farm organisation called Truth about Trade.

 

The possibility of eco-terrorism was not d to by Alejandro Delfino,

head of Argentine farm group Sociedad Rural Argentina. South America has had

plenty of its own trouble with foot-and-mouth outbreaks in Argentina, Brazil

and Uruguay.

 

But Delfino said foot and mouth disease had been prevalent in Argentina for

more than 50 years. It could have spread by trade from Europe or Britain, he

said.

 

Swill feeding of garbage to animals is outlawed in the United States and

Australia but not yet in Britain.

 

The United States has not had an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease for 72

years. Australia has been foot-and-mouth disease free since 1872.

 

 

 

Story by Michael Byrnes

 

 

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE

 

 

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