We are halfway through the year, and what a disaster it has been so far

Ben Gill, NFU

Mr Gill blamed the foot-and-mouth outbreak and the exceptional weather of last autumn and winter. And he said the income from farming was less than half what it was five years ago.

Mr Gill was giving his annual state of the industry report, usually presented at the premier agricultural fair, the Royal Show.

But the Show, always held in Warwickshire in the first week of July, has been cancelled this year because of foot-and-mouth, so Mr Gill presented his report at NFU headquarters in London.

Borrowings rise

He said the disease had rocked an industry, which was at its lowest ebb for 60 years.

"We are halfway through the year, and what a disaster it has been so far," said Mr Gill.

"At the Royal Show last year we thought things were bad. But foot-and-mouth has taken us out of the frying pan and into the blast furnace."

He said the latest statistics showed that farmers were earning on average �5,200 a year. Their total borrowings had risen to a new high of more than �10bn.

Shared misery

And the income from the whole of farming was �1.88bn, �3bn less than it was five years ago.

British farmers have traditionally found that, even in bad times, one or other sector would manage to do relatively well.

Ben Gill

They have relied on a faith in "Up horn, down corn" (or the other way round), meaning that livestock farmers could prosper even when arable farming was in a bad way.

But Mr Gill said things were now as bad for cereal producers as for livestock farmers devastated by foot-and-mouth.

Last year's floods, he said, had meant that the harvest this year could be about four million tonnes down on 2000.

Recovery programme

That was put at 24 million tonnes, 8.4% more than in the previous year.

Mr Gill said the NFU was pressing for a recovery programme that would include:

• the payment by the government of �34m of European Union aid triggered recently for arable farmers;
• "dramatic" improvements in import controls for meat and plants, to stop foot-and-mouth outbreaks ever happening again;
• emergency measures for sheep farmers, to help them to cope with the disappearance of their export market and their need to be able to move their animals;
• the reopening of the scheme for paying compensation to farmers for cattle aged over 30 months, which are killed and kept out of the food chain because of fears they could be carrying BSE ("mad cow disease"). The scheme was closed because the disposal routes for these cattle were needed for animals killed in the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

All sectors have been hit