THE effects of foot-and-mouth disease are dreadful and its economic consequences spread far wider than the farming community.

But there's a great deal of hypocrisy. Farmers claim to be upset at the killing of day-old lambs yet there are the same farmers who happily send them long distances to market or even overseas to be slaughtered when they're just a few weeks older.

Often they're the same farmers who still shoot day-old carves because they have no use and no value and who previously consigned them to the misery of continental veal crates.

All farmed animals are bred for slaughter and for no other reason - 900 million of them every year. The dreadful irony is, a quick death on the farm because of foot-and-mouth is almost certainly preferable to days of transportation, the brutality of livestock markets and the terror of inhumane slaughter.

I think people have to ask themselves what it is that upsets them. The slaughter of lambs is intolerable, but it won't stop when foot-and-mouth is over.

If this upsets you, then stop eating meat.

SAFFRON BOX,

Worcester.