Friday March 30 10:05 AM ET
Dutch Farmers Blockade Site of Foot-And-Mouth Case

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Angry Dutch farmers on Friday sealed off access to a farm infected with foot-and-mouth disease in the central village Kootwijkerbroek to protest against the planned slaughter of animals in the area.

Dutch officials have said they will cull 50,000 animals at some 200 farms located within a two-kilometer radius of the farm, where the disease was discovered on Thursday. The area is one of the country's biggest livestock centers.

The total cull of animals in the Netherlands is expected to reach nearly 100,000.

Dutch farmers have grown increasingly angry in recent days as the cull estimates grew, and are calling on the government to instead allow them to vaccinate animals to control the spread of the disease.

About 180 local farmers blocked a road leading to the farm with tractors and trucks, a municipal official in nearby town Barneveld said, but none of the protesters had so far been arrested.

Police in the area were not attempting to remove the protesters at the moment, and the official said it was not clear how long they would let the farmers occupy the area.

Earlier on Friday, angry farmers in the area briefly held hostage three workers from the state's Meat and Animal Inspection service.

The foot-and-mouth case in Kootwijkerbroek raised concerns that the disease was spreading out of control in the Netherlands, since it could not be linked to the earlier cases found in villages about near 18 miles to the northeast.

The farm ministry said it will propose a measure to compensate farmers for animals killed. No details of the plan were yet available.

The Dutch farm ministry said earlier in the day the number of confirmed cases of foot-and-mouth had risen by one to 11, and fears that the disease had crossed the border into Germany had mounted as officials there said they were investigating a suspected case.

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