Foot and Mouth is costing farmers £10 million a day

Cattle at a second farm in Surrey tested positive for foot and mouth disease, it was confirmed yesterday, as angry farmers warned they were losing £10million a day from the latest crisis.

The infected cattle had been slaughtered as a precaution on Thursday, after the highly contagious disease was found at a neighbouring farm in Egham a day earlier.

The latest cull was of about 800 pigs and 40 cattle on Stroude Farm, owned by Ernest Ward.

It came as the Government faces growing criticism that it bungled the crisis by declaring Britain to be "free from foot and mouth" a week ago, following last month's outbreak.

There is also continued anger and astonishment that the outbreak was caused by shocking failures at the Government-funded Pirbright research laboratory, just ten miles away.

Scientists say the cattle who fell ill this week were infected by the same virus strain found in two herds in Surrey last month, a strain which is thought to have escaped through a leaky drain at the lab.

Tory environment spokesman Peter Ainsworth said: "The confirmation that the disease was not confined to a single field will send further alarm signals to the farming industry.

"With every further case, the Government's negligence over biosecurity at Pirbright becomes even more damaging."

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Farmers' leaders say restrictions on the movement of livestock - and the export ban reintroduced by Europe on Wednesday - are worse than those imposed last month.

The National Farmers' Union estimates that the industry is

losing £10million a day - including £2million from the export ban, £6million through the inability to take animals to slaughter and £1.5million because of shut markets.

The union's chief economist Carmen Suarez said the cost would grow over the next month unless restrictions were eased.

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"It is devastating in terms of lost revenue and in terms of the restrictions now in place," she said.

"It is not only the fact you cannot move the animals, and so don't get any money for them.

"You have to keep expending money on those animals."

The news that another farm had been infected came as Gordon Brown met farmers affected by the disease in London.

Earlier, the Prime Minister had chaired a meeting of the emergency Cabinet committee Cobra.

Scotland and Wales have already relaxed movement restrictions to allow animals to go to slaughter and the Government is considering similar easing of the bans in parts of England far from Surrey.

NFU president Peter Kendall said he hoped the Government would relax movement restrictions in parts of England remote from Surrey to allow animals to go to slaughter.

He added: "It hasn't happened yet but we are hoping locals on Newark Lane in Ripley, around 12 miles from the site of the original outbreak, said cows kept on farmland in the area were due to be culled as well."

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Yesterday also saw the Queen receive a special licence from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to continue milk production on her farms at Windsor.

Although her farms are within the surveillance zone, she was, like other farmers, entitled to request a licence and there was no suggestion of special treatment.

d.derbyshire@dailymail.co.uk