8th November 2013

The strange case of foot and mouth

It was the summer of 2001 and the Ministry of Agriculture (MAFF) (Now DEFRA) was gearing up to slaughter and burn thousands of cows supposedly infected by foot and mouth disease on hundreds of pyres across Devon, Cumbria, Wales and Northumberland. Strangely enough, the creosote soaked railways sleepers used as firewood were ordered in by MAFF three months ahead of the outbreak, and farmers all over the country had been forbidden to vaccinate their cows. 

From his cell in Exeter Prison Hector Christie experienced the carnage and stench of burning bovine carcasses lasting for five days. He was arrested - broken leg and all - for lying in the middle of the road to stop the traffic in protest of the cull.

Like many others, Hector believes that the foot and mouth virus may have been deliberately released from Pirbright, an animal research laboratory. Why? “Because behind the mass cull was the Government’s hatred of small farmers,” Hector said. Guy Thomas-Everard, a small farmer in Devon made an impassioned plea against his healthy farm animals being killed as part of the pre-emptive cull designed to halt the spread of the disease in the Exmoor area. His plea and threatened legal challenge was ultimately successful and the government held three enquiries into the affair.

Hector is himself a small-scale farmer and still keeps a reduced herd of Highland cattle on his land at Tapeley Park, the ancestral home in Devon he inherited in a coin toss with his brother, who got Glyndebourne. Tapeley’s grounds have been successfully transformed by Hector and his team into award winning permaculture gardens as they work towards being Britain’s first environmentally sustainable stately home. [1]

The actions of a few can change the world

Hector thinks that small protests are important and the actions of a few can achieve an awful lot.  And, he believes in a “higher power,” angels - the spiritual dimension - call it what you will. “We shouldn’t have any fear when we are coming from our heart and soul and no ego, then it’s like the parting of the Red Sea,” he said.  His beliefs came in useful when shooting his organic wheat seed over the fences around a test plot of GM wheat in Rothamsted, an agricultural research station, in full view of the CCTV cameras and security guards, who didn’t seem to see or stop him.

However, his protest against GM crops did not go so well in Germany in 2011 when he got beaten up in the back of a police van. “Fortunately, I had my GM potato costume on so it didn’t hurt too much,” he confided.  Hector was also the first person to heckle Tony Blair over the Iraq war at a Labour party conference and showed me the scar on his wrist where the police tightened their handcuffs until he bled.

Hector’s advice to would-be activists is that it’s best to plan your protest as well as you can in regards to media coverage: “Because it’s a bit of a shame if you do it and no-one hears about it or gets to see the point of it.  Make demos noticeable by using brightly coloured tapes, posters and full size costumes of GM fruits and vegetables. It’s visually powerful and gets people on our side and you’re not going to get arrested for it.”

But his commitment may not be quite as ardent as a fellow protestor from Devon who managed an admirable 137 nights at the Occupy London demonstration in St Pauls in 2012. Hector managed only one night during which his phone was stolen, he lost £20, and had homeless people urinating all over his tent. 

Agriculture at a crossroads

Now Hector is convinced we are at a crossroads as far as food security is concerned: “It’s like Custer’s last stand,” he explained. On the one hand you have the need for food to be produced and consumed locally and sustainably as is demonstrated by the demand for allotments. And, there is an increase in so called “guerrilla gardens” emerging in towns and cities, together with the rise of permaculture principles to grow our fruit and vegetables without the use of finite inputs in the face of an uncertain future. On the other hand, you have the Corporations intent on controlling the industrialised food chain by using legal mechanisms to protect patents on living organisms and preventing growers from seed swapping.

Hector reckons one way of putting the power back into the hands of communities is to use the land and the churches for food growing and distribution, so that everyone is given the basics at a local level. That’s the sort of initiative the Government should be forced to implement, he said.

But despite Hector’s larger than life charisma his concerns and demands are reasonable and straightforward: for long-term independent scientific tests to prove that GM food is safe for us and for our children to eat, safe for the environment, and that it is not going to contaminate our conventional and organic crops before it's too late.

[1] http://www.tapeleygardens.com/