BBC Documentaries

Foot and Mouth: The Killing Fields in Wales (2021x113)

Air date: Oct 13, 2021

Exactly 20 years ago Wales was emerging from an epidemic that lasted six months and saw over six million animals killed across the UK. The impact of foot and mouth disease was felt in every corner of Wales. Major events like rugby internationals were cancelled, access to the countryside banned and schools closed in rural areas. Farmers were forced to isolate at home and tourism was struggling. It was one of the first major challenges for the newly devolved Welsh administration, with a young Carwyn Jones finding himself at the eye of the storm as the minister responsible for agriculture. Many people most closely involved - the farmers, the vets, the people who slaughtered the animals - have never spoken before about the lasting effect that the epidemic had on them. It is clear that the emotion and trauma they experienced is still raw 20 years on. This film looks back at what happened. There were desperate attempts to contain the epidemic and controversy over how to deal with a rapidly spreading disease. Hard decisions were made to cull hundreds of thousands of healthy animals in a bid to stop the infection. Events reached a climax with the controversial decision to bury carcasses at the Epynt, an upland area near Sennybridge used as a military range. Locals blocked roads and Carwyn Jones faced his biggest challenge yet.