Benn enters the ring and takes a verbal battering

If DEFRA secretary Hilary Benn was in any doubt about the havoc wrought by foot-and-mouth disease, then a meeting with farmers at Skipton Auction Mart will have spelt it out in plain English.

One farmer after another came to confront Mr Benn at the mart in North Yorkshire with distressing accounts of businesses in turmoil.

One man spoke for everyone around the ring when he candidly asked the minister: "What are you going to do to get us out of this mess?" In Whitehall-speak came the reply: "Our aim is to see normal economic activity return as soon as possible."

That was no help to the listening cattle and sheep producers, whose priority is to get stock shifted before winter sets in.

"Movement of livestock will mean movement of cash and that's what farmers are concerned with now as they try to salvage something from all of this," said Lancashire farmer Thomas Binns, chairman of the NFU livestock board.