A government offer on joint industry/administration disease cost and control which takes the politics out of disease management is not a proposition that farmers can easily turn down, according to the National Beef Association.
It added that the case would be strengthened if the Government proposal does not automatically include taking a levy off farmers to fund the elimination of an exotic epidemic like FMD.
"Such a suggestion may not necessarily be a step too far, or a move that is too hasty, as long as a cross-UK system can be constructed and government is prepared to work seriously towards the adoption of a centralised disease control body, perhaps modelled on something like the Food Standards Agency, which can operate outside parliament and be truly independent," said NBA chairman Duff Burrell, from Alnwick.
"That type of initiative could be adopted at UK level through a board consisting of an independent chairman, one representative from the UK's four governments and a farmer representative from each of the four home countries too. "If a truly independent cross-UK committee could be assembled, and politics really were taken out of disease management, it would mean, for example, that a radically different approach could be taken to TB control which is currently hugely compromised by political considerations over the culling of badgers."
The broad view of the NBA at present is that the idea of developing a radically new system for national disease control must be examined carefully and that the association, and other organisations, should take a positive view of these discussions - especially if it means the current top-down system of decision making is abandoned.
"We think all livestock farmer representatives should take part in cost sharing and control negotiations with government and only back out if developments take a direction they find impossible to sign up to," said Mr Burrell.
"It is clear that the adoption of such an initiative will call for a massive shift in outlook from both government and industry. Ministers and senior civil servants will be required to abandon their well embedded, top-down, parent-pupil, approach."
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