WHY should farmers be compensated for producing commodities unfit for human consumption when other businesses are more likely to be prosecuted for doing so?

Why should those who oppose flesh-eating and factory farming and who have been warning of the dangers of an epidemic like BSE for ten years have their taxes used to support producers who show little inclination to do anything other than sink their compensation payments back into the very businesses which have caused the current fiasco?

There is a very practical solution which could unite and satisfy all parties and guarantee us better quality food for the future.

Payments to farmers should not be available for the purchase of animals, animal feed, chemical fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides or associated products. Instead, it should be available for vegetable and fruit production and converting their diseased land to organic cultivation.

This would ensure increased production of food of the highest nutritional quality and enable our farmers to meet the escalating shortage of organic British fruit and vegetables.

It is also the only way to guarantee that we do not reproduce a BSE-type nightmare in cattle or some other intensively-farmed animal.

All it needs is the political will.

PAUL GAYNOR, Office Manager, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, London NW1.

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