FARMING still faces a bleak and uncertain future, say Kent victims of the Foot and Mouth crisis.

Pauline Stevens, of cattle and sheep farmers L Stevens and Son, Elm Farm, Lower Halstow, near Sittingbourne, this week joined a growing army of campaigners for a public inquiry to be held into the affair and the Government's handling of it.

She said: "We don't know what the future holds for us. Livestock markets are due to re-open in February and when this happens, there will be so many new regulations as to make it difficult, even impractical, for both farmers and buyers to return to them.

"We are lucky to have survived this crisis. Other farmers have been bankrupted and for some, the future was so bleak, they have committed suicide.

"The effects of the Foot and Mouth crisis in 2001 will be felt by all of us for many years to come."

She said the past year had been filled with fear and anxiety. The Stevens' farm has 100 head of cattle, as well as 700 sheep.

An outbreak of Foot and Mouth on the Isle of Sheppey meant the farm fell within an exclusion zone. Animals could not been moved, even across roads.

Mrs Stevens said local farmers had also been hit by the Government's thinking that it was possible for Britain to import cheap food, and therefore food production in this country was no longer important.

"We have been told that it is government policy for farmers to become custodians of the countryside, and cattle and sheep will be kept to graze fields, rather than provide home-produced meat," she said.