MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Foot-and-Mouth link to Army Waste Food. British Soldiers Get Meat from Uruguay and Brazil.

Waste food from the British Army -- whose soldiers eat meat imported from Uruguay and Brazil -- could have been the source of the disastrous foot-and-mouth epidemic sweeping Britain in recent weeks.

It has now belatedly been revealed that the pig farm in Northumberland, at Heddon-on-the-Wall, where the outbreak is believed to have begun, regularly collected untreated food waste from a nearby Army training at Whitburn to turn into pig swill.

A British Defence Minister, Baroness Symons, has told Parliament: "It is possible that the Army waste could have triggered the outbreak". Her admission was disclosed in a written answer to questions submitted by a Liberal Democrat agricultural spokeswoman. More than half the meat used by the British Army is imported, some of it from Uruguay and Brazil, both of which have had outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease.

After the Defence Minister's disclosure in the House of Lords, a Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "We do get food from both Brazil and Uruguay. However, as part of the regulations imposed both by the United Kingdom and also the European Union, the company that buys our food is obliged to check that that it is coming from foot-and-mouth free areas. And that is the case with our food".

Suspect pig farm collected Army food waste for 25 Years

The Ministry confirmed that the Northumberland farmer had been licensed to collect waste food from the Army camp for 25 years. The farmer says he has been collecting food from the Army camp about ten times a year.

British scientists say the British foot-and-mouth epidemic was most likely to have been caused by pig swill originating from foreign supplies but no one knows from which country, as foot and mouth disease is prevalent in many countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, as well as in South America. The Ministry's revelation linking the suspect farm with waste Army food is the first time that a potential path of infection has been identified. Several Members of Parliament have now demanded an inquiry. There is anger that only now has a link with army waste food become public knowledge, when other catering establishments, including Chinese restaurants, have previously come under suspicion because they also supplied waste food to the same farm.

The latest revelations coincided with Uruguay's declaration of a national emergency following the confirmation of two foot and mouth, FAM,