The response by the government to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom is in effect tightening the screws on farmers who are already devastated by the worst crisis in agriculture in 60 years. In addition to preventing livestock movement, the government has imposed restrictions on the movement of working people in rural areas. These measures are backed up by the courts, cops, and British army. All this is being done in the name of wiping out a disease that rarely kills animals and cannot kill human beings.
Working people need to demand massive aid to farmers facing these government restrictions. No farmer should lose his or her land as a result of the steps being taken by the government to prevent the movement and sale of livestock.
Contrary to the picture presented in the big business media, working farmers are not the source of the crisis in agriculture--they are its victims. It is the workings of capitalism that turns crises like the outbreak of diseases and flooding into social and economic catastrophes for working people.
London's approach to combating foot-and-mouth disease has nothing to do with meeting the needs of working farmers, but is driven by the capitalist rulers' fight for markets for their products abroad. For decades British bosses used the "disease free" status awarded to British livestock to gain an edge on its rivals, particularly to dominate markets in countries oppressed by imperialism, where the disease remains prevalent. The British government ended a mandatory vaccination program to prevent outbreaks of this disease a number of years ago.
Working farmers are being caught between rising costs of farm inputs like fuel and fertilizers and sharply declining prices for the livestock and crops that they produce. This cost/price squeeze imposed by the capitalists and their government is driving record numbers of farmers into ruin and off the land.
As farmers in Cumbria begin to resist the government's policy of slaughtering animals that are not infected with the disease, workers should stand with them as they fight to defend their livelihoods. If workers are to be successful in their struggle against the capitalist class we will have to build a revolutionary movement based on a fighting alliance with working farmers to take power out of the hands of the rulers and establish a workers and farmers government.
The labor movement has a vital interest in preventing the ruin of working farmers. It should demand: