AS the crisis in our meat industry deepens, I feel compelled to write and offer my sympathy and support to our farmers and their animals who are the innocent victims of whatever hairbrained ideas our "scientific brains" can come up with.

What sane mind would ever have dreamt of adding animal by-products to food for vegetarian cattle? That "cheap" source of protein has cost this country dearly.

As an EU directive banned its use in 1986, why is Belgium still including it in its animal feedstuffs?

A recent report on radio told of a cow in Belgium dying of suspected rabies, which then entered the food chain, and was later found to be BSE. So why hasn't Belgium beef been banned?

Scientists tell us that the disease is readily transmissible from one species to another, and we know that pigs will have eaten "contaminated" provender too, but it doesn't take an educated brain to realise why our main, most successful meat exports - beef and lamb - are on Europe's hit list, when pork, a minor and almost negligible industry, isn't.

It didn't take long for Europe to condemn and threaten our farmers with action in the European Court of Justice for their desperate retaliation in blockading ports.

It's a pity they weren't as quick off the mark when French farmers sabotaged British lamb and when French lorry drivers brought the entire transport system to a standstill.

Europe has one rule for Britain, and a different rule for the rest.

I also think that our government has over-reacted, and if they are so concerned about public health, and wish to ban all disease-causing agents, then cigarettes and tobacco should have been banned long since.

As we are part of Europe, we must become European, and therefore put our own interests first. We should support British agriculture and industry and keep British jobs. The day I have no other option but to buy foreign meat will be the day when I go vegetarian.

R H McGREAL, Mill Hill Lane, Hapton, Burnley.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.