Your editorial comment on the state of agriculture under the grip of foot and mouth (Malvern Gazette, March 23) highlights how important it is that lessons are learned from the current crisis and our whole approach to the countryside changes from now on.

For too long, agricultural practices have been developing in the direction of industrial processing, with the public largely unaware of what has been going on in pursuit of cheaper food for the consumer.

Accompanying this shift have been other fundamental changes in the basis of the rural economy and landscape, from its traditional farming basis towards much more emphasis on tourism and new forms of enterprise - craft businesses and the like. These are steadily transforming the countryside into an extended form of our urban environment.

In the short-term the new businesses may mean more jobs and more economic development generally but, of course, they also mean additional traffic, more infrastructure, increased noise and pollution and irreparable damage to our rural heritage (ironically the real asset that the same tourist industry is built upon).

The foot and mouth crisis should serve to wake us all up to the downsides of intensive farming methods and to the effects of ill-considered agricultural subsidy systems, which result in the illogical and ethically questionable transportation of livestock over thousands of miles by a 'meat industry'. The rampant spread of the terrible virus comes as no surprise to the few who were aware of the extent of such practices.

If nothing else, the current crisis demands that we rethink our agricultural practices and call into question our whole approach to the countryside and rural life. We have to develop more sustainable policies that protect what we value about our rural environment and ensure that traditional methods of farming and local supply chains are neither hijacked by big business and urban/industrial values nor are undermined by the gentrification of the countryside simply for the benefit of tourism and leisure.

John W Raine, Lynn Clearwaters

Malvern Hills Green Party, Malvern Hills Agenda 21 Group. (via e-mail)