UK gov reviews compensation figures for FMD

UK government officials said on Wednesday they had started to review compensation payments to farmers hit by Britain's foot-and-mouth epidemic amid concern over valuations of slaughtered livestock. A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said the review would look into payments for diseased or at-risk livestock that had already run into millions of pounds. "DEFRA are reviewing to see whether the system is offering good value for money for the taxpayer and for farmers,"​ the spokesman told Reuters. "Farmers are already asked to explain any high valuations and those are accounted for by DEFRA officials...but obviously we have to make sure that the right valuations are being made. So the scheme is currently being reviewed to see if it is one which we want to continue or if we want to make any amendments."​ Total compensation payments have reached £893 million ($1.27 billion). Over 3.5 million livestock have been culled since the outbreak was uncovered in late February. Farmers can receive the government's set value for their animals after slaughter, a price which in some cases was artificially inflated to encourage producers to sign up, but some have brought in valuers to check the worth of herds. The DEFRA spokesman said officials would decide on any amendments, which might involve setting new standard values or forcing farmers to accept lower set prices, after the review. "This is a highly unusual situation we have here, and it's only really responsible of the government to keep these things under review because there is a cost to the taxpayer,"​ he said. DEFRA has already reduced welfare payments to farmers whose livestock were forced to live in unsuitable conditions after being trapped by restrictions on animal movements and has curtailed work to clean up farms because of spiralling costs. But farmers said they were not to blame for the large bills the government faced. "It seems now the government are getting the bills coming in, people are falling over in shock,"​Robert Forster, head of the National Beef Association, said. "Farmers are an easy target...But it's far too late for them to complain. A functioning supervisory system should have been put in place from the start...not these wayward set of government policies."​