Farmers
and butchers are preparing to bombard the switchboards of BBC local
and regional radio stations after next Tuesday's Brass Tacks programme
on BBC2 - about modern practices in livestock farming and meat production.
They fear they will be coming under attack and aim to set the record
straight.
They are angry that their representative organisations
were not consulted during the preparations of the programme and
their tempers have been raised further by the front cover of the
latest Radio Times.
It shows a piglet with the caption: "Health
warning: Meat and poultry can seriously affect your health."
If the protesters have their way the TV panel
scheduled to discuss the programme will be heavily loaded with industry
spokesmen. When the TV broadcast is over regional and local radio
stations will continue the debate on phone-in programmes.
In a letter to the Financial Times, Mr Wally Johnstone,
chairman of the Meat and Livestock Commission, described the Radio
Times caption as "damaging, misleading and entirely without
foundation."
He added: "It is bound to be taken by some
people as an official warning, although, of course, no such warning
exists and there is no evidence to support such a statement.
"I do not know what will emerge in the TV
and radio programmes on May 8, but the front page of the Radio Times
makes it clear that the dice are already loaded."
The National Farmers' Union, which said it had
contemplated |
taking out an injunction against the Radio Times and forcing the
issue's withdrawal from sale, is pressing for representation on
the discussion panel and has alerted farmers, asking them to take
part in the local and regional radio phone-in planned to follow
the television broadcast.
The NFU is also preparing what a spokesman calls
"hot missiles" to be sent speeding to the BBC's director-general,
the chairman of the corporation's board of governors and Mr Geoffrey
Cannon, editor of Radio Times.
Mr Len Moss, of the National Federation of Meat
Traders, speaking for retail butchers, called the cover a "scandalous
piece of scaremongering."
The UK Agricultural Supply Trades Association,
representing grain and feed merchants whose products, chemicals
and medicaments are generally mixed for administration to farm animals,
complained that the programme was prepared "without so much
as a nod in our direction."
The Ministry of Agriculture, which was consulted by the programme
makers on the use of antibiotics and chemicals, was waiting to see
the broadcast before making any comments.
The BBC, claiming that the programme had been
adequately researched with the Ministry. The Royal College of Veterinary
Surgeons and others, rebuffed complaints about the cover.
"We do not expect that the cover will be
seen as anything other than a play on the wording of the familiar
tobacco health warnings," the corporation said.
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