WHAT a telling insight was given into the handling of the foot and mouth disease crisis when Lancashire farmers whose animals were culled met to hear advice from government officials on restocking or starting other businesses.

For rather receiving clear guidance on the way forward for their devastated farms, it was evident that the representatives of the Department of the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs could not tell them when or how they could begin livestock farming again.

But, as the farmers' frustration made plain, such confusion has been characteristic of the way that the foot and mouth crisis has been dealt with from the outset.

In short, as was charged at this supposed 'way forward' meeting at Gisburn for some 100 farmers, it has been a shambles.

Yet, lamentably, it seems it is one that is being allowed to continue as, dragging on for six months now, the epidemic is no longer at the forefront of public and media attention. And, unlike the first weeks of its onset when it coincided with a general election campaign, the political initiative seems also to have died down -- to the extent that uncertainty and disorganisation prevail.

It may be that the gridlock over compensation payments to culled farms has been untangled, but it is apparent that many farmers still do not know when they will be allowed to start using the money to buy replacement livestock and, similarly, there seems to be no firm strategies in place to help those who wish to diversify into new businesses.

It may be that the incidence of this dreadful disease is waning, but that is not the case with the hardship and worry that it has brought to farming families in many parts of Lancashire -- and muddling through through, enough of which has gone on already, should no longer be the response by government agencies to their plight. The foot and mouth disease has been a national emergency that is far from over. And for farmers who have had a lifetime's work destroyed, the response to getting them back on their feet and their livelihoods restored should be an all-out one -- rather than a strategy that seems to be summarised by: kill, compensate and 'dunno.'