THE picture on this morning's Front Page will upset some of you.

We apologise if that's the case, but we believe there's no more appropriate way to illustrate why the Evening News, and its Berrow's Journal and Malvern Gazette sister weeklies, are backing the Stress in the Countryside Appeal.

We hope today's news will be a ray of light - slender, perhaps - breaking through the darkness of life in the two counties' farming communities.

It comes a couple of days after Environment Minister Michael Meacher said there were plans for a public inquiry into how Britain farms its land and rears its livestock.

A day later, he withdrew the remarks having, apparently, embarrassed colleagues by jumping the gun.

That was a pity because, from where we stand, listening to all shades of opinion, the consensus already is that the industry must be rethought and reconstructed.

Among other changes, we need food production that's driven by and supplies the local marketplace. It would cut transport costs and pollution. It would be a boon to our own farmers and producers.

It might mean a return to seasonal food, but whose happiness really depends upon being able to buy a supermarket mango in mid-winter?

Likewise, livestock must be taken to market and slaughtered locally too.

There's little doubt that this frightening outbreak would have been contained within Cumbria, had the industry not become dependent upon moving animals hundreds of miles to be sold and killed.

It means Mr Meacher's right. There will be an inquest into foot-and-mouth and, in our view, it must be a Royal Commission.

What's more, it's not too soon to be talking about it.

The time has come to give farmers a reason to look beyond the grim horizon and believe that they'll never have to face this horror again.