It's 15 years since the devastating Foot and Mouth outbreak which led to many local farmers having to watch their entire herd slaughtered and carted away for destruction. We tend to forget things like this as we are bombarded by the 'latest news' 24 X 7.
The first case of the disease to be detected was at Cheale Meats abattoir in Little Warley, Essex on 19 February 2001 in pigs from Buckinghamshire and the Isle of Wight. Over the next four days, several more cases were announced in Essex. On 23 February, a case was confirmed at Heddon on the Wall, Northumberland, from where the pig in the first case had come; this farm was later confirmed as the source of the outbreak and the owner, Bobby Waugh of Pallion, was convicted of failing to inform the authorities of a notifiable disease and feeding his pigs untreated waste food, what we used to call pig swill. As a consequence the feeding of waste food to pigs was banned by the EU and pig farmers lost a valuable source of cheap nourishment.
The banning of swill-feeding was perhaps the most damaging consequence of the outbreak as it meant that pig farmers had to start buying imported protein, largely soya meal, which apart from being expensive, uses land which otherwise could be used for feeding humans. Properly managed, treating swill and feeding it was perfectly safe as long as it was done properly. Marshall's at Bradley collected canteen and hotel waste all round the district, mixed it with home grown barley meal and skim milk from West Marton Dairies and boiled it in a large vessel fitted with a rotary paddle and the resulting porridge was piped directly to the pigs which thrived on it. I used to deliver tankers of skim milk to Bradley and I can tell you that the porridge smelled beautiful! Marshall's had their own abattoir on site and I usually came away with a generous helping of warm pig liver. Not everybody's cup of tea I know, people are very squeamish about offal these days, but I can tell you that fried up with bacon and egg it made a breakfast fit for a king!
Another advantage of swill boiling was that after a few boilings the paddle in the boiler started to hit the bones and cutlery which settled in the bottom. Vera and I started our married life with this cutlery! Looking back, foot and mouth was a disaster for the farmers but had other far-reaching consequences and it is perhaps time to look again at how we use waste food instead of dumping it in land fill where it produces methane and adds to global warming. The key is proper supervision and inspection of how the resource is used. Recycling is now seen as a valuable exercise, we should recycle waste food as well. And you might like to give a bit of thought to pig liver. Lovely grub!
Remember all the paths that were closed?