While I think about it last week I read a report by Lancaster University on The Health and Social Consequences of the 2001 Foot & Mouth Disease Epidemic in North Cumbria (pdf). It is both a fascinating and harrowing account of the impact the disease had on the farming community. From the intro:

The research is based on systematic analysis of testimonies given by an (extraordinary) group of ‘ordinary citizens’, of their experience of living with and through the epidemic. It draws out evidence about the effects of the epidemic across a wide range of occupational groups. It makes recommendations for policy and practice which emanate directly from the longitudinal data and from the process of synthesising different kinds of evidence.

Findings are informed by subsequent readings of background literature related to the analytical themes developed, and also by the substantive reports and documents which have emerged in the wake of the events of 2001. While the empirical research was carried out in North Cumbria, where the epidemic hit hardest and for longest, we have striven to follow events and reports from the other affected areas, and this report in no way seeks to minimise the severe effects on those other areas e.g. North Devon, South Wales and Northumberland.

No doubt will come in useful background for when I meet staff from the Farm Crisis Network.

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