Scandal of the untagged pig

Pig farmers were accused yesterday of having failed to learn the lessons of the £8bn foot-and-mouth crisis, with potentially devastating consequences for farming and the British economy.

The Government's Animal Health minister, Elliot Morley, said he was "angry and appalled" at news that an untagged pig with symptoms of foot-and-mouth disease had been illegally transported from an unidentified farm to an abattoir in Leicestershire.

If tests had shown that the pig was infected with the virus, the consequences of not knowing the animal's precise origins would have been catastrophic, said Mr Morley. "If this had been foot-and-mouth disease, we would have started off with one hand tied behind our backs because someone has not abided by the regulations. I am frankly amazed that, after the terrible experience of last year, some people don't seem to have learnt from this."

Last year's foot-and-mouth epidemic began on a pig-fattening farm in Northumberland. The disease was not detected until a vet identified symptoms in animals sent to an abattoir 300 miles away. The vital delay allowed the disease to spread into sheep flocks throughout England, leading to the slaughter of millions of animals. "We've had the worst outbreak of foot-and-mouth the world has ever known and in that outbreak it's clear that traceability and abiding by the regulations are absolutely essential and yet within a short period people are ignoring the rules," Mr Morley said.

The recent scare began on Thursday last week when government vets on a routine inspection of Dawkins International abattoir in Congerstone, Leicestershire, noticed that a sow had lesions on its feet which could have meant it was infected with foot-and-mouth. But the vets were hampered by not being able to trace the animal's farm because it had neither identity tags nor markings – in clear breach of rules introduced in 1995.

While government scientists tested the animal, restrictions on livestock movements within five miles of the abattoir were put in place. The lack of a tag meant that all the 34 farms that supplied pigs to the abattoir had to be put under surveillance. Inquiries have narrowed down potential suppliers of the pig to 17 farms. None of the owners admitted not marking animals.

Another complication was that it was not known whether the animal went directly to the abattoir or if it came via a market at Selby, where it could have infected other livestock. Pigs are the worst farm animal for foot-and-mouth disease because they generate huge amounts of the virus, which is released into the air as infectious "plumes" that some scientists believe can travel long distances.

Mr Morley said moving untagged pigs was inexcusable. "This is a case of someone who has ignored the law. The law is very clear ... pigs that are being transported for slaughter or sale do have to be marked," he said. "If this had been a foot-and-mouth case again, it would have been a re-run ... We couldn't have traced it properly. Our monitoring clearly works; we pick up suspect cases. But if we don't have people abiding by the rules then the whole system fails."

Richard Longthorp, of the National Pig Association, accused Mr Morley of overplaying the significance of the untagged pig and of diverting attention away from illegal meat imports.

"It's unfair that Mr Morley points all the blame at the pig industry when the system clearly worked," he said. "The farms supplying the abattoir were traced, after all." But he added: "I'm not trying to defend the indefensible. The pig should have been marked."