The sight of thousands of dead animals being roughly manhandled and burnt is profoundly disturbing.  Even more so is the sight of healthy new-born lambs in the fields, in the knowledge that they, too, are doomed. 

I have written elsewhere of bad farming practices which contributed to the spread of foot & mouth, and of the government's ill-conceived strategy to combat the disease, so here I want to look at the role of the man in the street.

In their constant search for instant headlines the media have started talking about the number of people who might convert to vegetarianism.  No doubt there will be some who do so, and there will be many more who try it for a short while.  But if total conversion seems rather extreme, I would like to suggest to meat-eaters that vegetarianism is not the only other option.

There is no doubt that as our lives (in general) become more and more sedentary our protein requirement falls.  But as we become (in general) more affluent, we eat more meat.  And as we are faced with ever more ways of spending our money we buy more and more cheap meat.  In consequence our life styles seriously damage our health and support the very farming practices that now so outrage us.

It has been estimated that 7% of Western health care budgets is spent on the overweight.  It has even been suggested that there is an earnings penalty for the obese.  The prevailing wind carries many things across the Atlantic.  If 60% of all Americans are now overweight or obese we can expect the numbers to rise in the UK.  Diet is only part of the problem, but if we need prodding in order to change old habits foot & mouth can surely provide a kick-start.

There can be no economic or social justification for the production of large quantities of cheap, inferior meat.  There can be no justification for a political system that rewards such production.  And there can be no medical justification for the subsequent consumption.  Intensive farming is driven by the profit motive.  Exercise and space are sacrificed, as is a well-balanced diet, and animal bodies are pumped with drugs and hormones to put more meat on the table at less cost.  This is the reason we are able to buy cheap burgers or chickens.  And by encouraging this practice we are being hypocritical if we claim concern for animal welfare.  We can, of course, become vegetarian, but well short of that extreme is a whole range of choices about quality and quantities of the meat we buy.

We should lobby our politicians to dismantle the ludicrous Common Agricultural Policy, but if we really care about what is happening in the countryside the easiest way to provoke change is to buy fewer cheap burgers and fried chickens.