But in between the trips, Mr Waugh visited farms in the Borders and Yorkshire. All these farms were placed under restriction orders by Maff. So far, none has gone down with foot and mouth.Mr Waugh does not deny his pigs had foot and mouth But he wonders whether he is not being singled out unfairly “I think I’ve been victimised,” he said. “The more I hear, the more I think it’s been around in sheep a lot longer. Instead of my pigs giving it to sheep, I think sheep gave it to my pigs.”There are indications the virus was present in Britain before it was found in Mr Waugh’s pigs. In Dumfries and Galloway in January, shepherds experienced a heavier loss of lambs than usual.

One of the signs of foot and mouth in sheep is ewes aborting their lambs. And a flock of sheep was sent through Ross on Wye market and delivered to France at least a month before the outbreak officially started. They were tested positive.Bruce Jobson, a farmer in Northumberland, is convinced Maff is holding something back. He said their “version of events is strange and has not been fully explained”. Illegally imported meat in Chinese restaurants, he argued, is too difficult to disprove. “Why not an English, Italian, or Indian?” No restaurant, he pointed out, has so far been cited by Maff.. The foot and mouth epidemic has produced multi-million pound windfalls for some of Britain’s largest landowners.

The foot and mouth epidemic has produced multi-million pound windfalls for some of Britain’s largest landowners.Just over 300 farmers have received compensation payments for foot and mouth disease totalling more than £35m, with the largest sums going to some of Britain’s wealthiest landowners.Lord Inglewood, a Tory MEP who also sits in the House of Lords, will receive a large six-figure pay-out for the slaughter of livestock on his 1,100 acre farm in Cumbria.Similarly, a six-figure sum will be paid to Lord Lonsdale on his nearby 2,700-acre estate for the loss of 10,000 sheep.One farmer in Dumfries has been paid £1.5m for the destruction of his pedigree herd. Willie Cleave, the Devon farmer whose widescale buying and selling of sheep helped spread the disease into that county, is understood have received a huge pay out.The compensation paid out – on generous terms agreed between the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff) and the National Farmers’ Union – is in contrast to the loan arrangements now put in place for small tourist and retail businesses affected by the disease.The large sums are also worrying government ministers, alarmed at the political impact on their constituents in mining and steel areas, where little or no compensation was paid when their communities were hit by job losses in the 1980s.”All we’ve heard so far are complaints from farmers but they are cashing in on the crisis,” said one minister. “We never saw anything like this compensation for mining and steel communities.”One agricultural economist predicted farmers could actually make money from foot and mouth by replacing worn-out livestock with better-bred animals with improved yields.Ken Thomson, professor of agricultural economics at Aberdeen University, told the Independent on Sunday: “Farmers could make money out of foot and mouth. If you slaughter all your herd and you have to restock you will get the best animals you can, whereas many of the ones slaughtered were on their last legs. Farmers will end up with a much better stock.”Genetic improvements are going ahead at 1 or 2 per cent a year in terms of yield. You could be looking at a 5 per cent jump in productivity because you have had to replace your breeding stock.”The present compensation package came into effect on 28 March and provides standard tariffs for sheep, pigs and cattle. But farmers also have the option of getting condemned or slaughtered livestock independently valued if they do not believe the Maff rates are sufficient.According to the latest Maff figures, 303 claimants have received £35.7m – an average pay-out of £118,000.

A further £23m has been authorised but not yet paid out to another 363 claimants – an average of £63,000.The size of the payout is dependent on the size of herds and the type of livestock. For example, farmers receive £1,100 for every breeding cow and £90 for every breeding ewe. Payments for pedigree animals can be as high as £2,000 per beast.Lord Inglewood, educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, will receive hundreds of thousands of pounds for the 500 cows, 1,400 sheep and 1,000 lambs slaughtered on his estate near Penrith. He is still in dispute with Maff over its valuations of pedigree breeds, which he says were valued at only a little more than non-pedigree animals.”I would imagine mine would be one of the largest claims,” said Lord Inglewood, before adding that despite compensation the outbreak has “knocked a hole” in the business. The estate and country home, dating back to medieval times, has been in Lord Inglewood’s family since the early 17th century.