Important step forward says NFU as markets set to resume

The NFU has welcomed the news that livestock markets can resume from Monday next week outside the 10km foot and mouth surveillance zone, which still in place in Surrey. The lifting of restrictions takes place from one minute past midnight on September 3 – exactly one month after the FMD outbreak was reported.

Shows and other gatherings involving animals will also resume, subject to various conditions, agreed during top level talks between the NFU, other industry stakeholders and Defra over the past few days.

These are very much interim arrangements, with all remaining restrictions on livestock movements expected to be lifted at midnight on Friday next week, when, all being well, the Surveillance Zone is due to be lifted.

NFU President Peter Kendall said: "This is an important step forward for the industry that desperately needs to get its marketing back to normal so as to limit the damage from the foot and mouth outbreak. It should give confidence, a much-needed boost and enable planning to go ahead for the important autumn sales of breeding livestock, and the remaining agricultural shows.

"The fact that we have been able to lift the restrictions at the earliest possible opportunity is testament both to the determination and speed with which farmers and Government responded to the outbreak, and to the efforts of all concerned to get the industry back to normal once it became clear that the disease had been contained."