We have a national scrapie scheme on the go with the intention of eliminating scrapie from the national sheep flock. Perhaps, like Australia and New Zealand, we should think again. Both these countries took the view that when you have animals that react to a scrapie test but then do not get scrapie, you lose that immunity if you take them out, and probably immunity to other things as well. So, rather than lose this natural immunity, both Australia and New Zealand ended their eradication schemes. Scrapie has been around for 300 or 400 years without causing any problems so perhaps they have a point and we should be re-thinking our strategy as well.

I understand that a haulier from lower down country who has the contract to collect scrapie sheep in the scheme has picked up as many as 10,000 in a week. I further understand that as many as 50,000 animals over time have gone into the disposal scheme from the Shetland Isles. It is suspected that some people in high places would very much like to take out a large number of sheep from the national flock.

Remember that, during foot-and-mouth, several million animals were destroyed even though they did not have the disease. Remember also that we still do not know whether the virus came from infected meat or out of a bottle.

I may also say that a farmer friend of mine was visited by a high ranking adviser to the Irish government when we were in the midst of the epidemic. He asked my friend if foot-and-mouth had been present in hill sheep the autumn before it came to light on the Northumberland pig farm? The adviser went on to say "We had an outbreak in Ireland but we soon cleared it up using ring vaccination as they did in the Netherlands. We controlled the outbreak in no time."

I do not know whether I was surprised or not at what I heard last week. Perhaps not much surprises me anymore! What I heard was that concern was being felt in the world of auctioneering by someone well placed to know about the fear that it was not if, but when there would be another outbreak of foot-and-mouth in the UK. To follow that, a politician has posed the question "Do we need agriculture?" So what's new?

The point is made that agriculture is only 1.5 per cent of Gross National Product (GNP) but you and I know only too well that figures can be made to prove anything, depending on which side of the fence you are. If you look at the other, more sensible point of view, we have a very small workforce of about 1.5 per cent, producing 70 per cent of temperate foods according to the last figures I heard. Now that has to be important for a country to have food security as well as help with the balance of payments.

To get back to what I said earlier about the depletion of the national sheep flock, I have one or two more instances to highlight. Some months ago one of the well known quangos was believed to have called for a reduction of some 14 million sheep. Say no more.

Then we had and probably still have some Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs scientists hell bent on trying to find BSE in the national flock. Not, mark you, setting out to prove there is none (and there is not), but determined to prove that there is. You will, of course, notice the subtle difference. Am I right or am I right to be suspicious of some people's agenda? Then we have the position, and this will be a minuted position, where around the turn of the century a meeting of agricultural ministers met in Brussels and, as the report goes, made a recommendation to the EU Commission that the UK should cease livestock farming and become regarded as a largely arable area.

Whenever I asked questions about this no one wanted to know, tending to look kindly on me for asking such a question, or else looking outraged that I should dare to ask such a question. Dr Richard North mentioned this "carry on" at a meeting in Penrith, I believe it is also included in his book.

If we put all these things together you may perhaps understand why myself and others are concerned about what we see as unwarranted attacks on the sheep industry.

Dialect word: Vannar meaning almost or very nearly.

Thought for the day: To a man in the street carrying a grandfather's clock: "Why not carry a watch?"