TALES FROM THE ROAD 32 – FOOT & MOUTH & FERRY PORTS & EARTHQUAKES

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you plan, there are things that you cannot predict, and some of them can significantly disrupt the way you go about your business. This Tale starts here in the UK in 2001 when the Foot & Mouth epidemic broke out, the first outbreak for 20 years. A few weeks before, I had arranged to take my 14 year old son up to the Roman sites along Hadrian’s Wall and across to Northumberland, and knowing there would be some travel disruption we decided to stick to plan rather than postpone until a better time.

And we did manage to see Vindolanda and some of the other key features of the wall, but our route was blocked to many others, as DEFRA supervised the burning of huge numbers of livestock. Our onward journey to Northumberland saw us diverted onto minor routes that we would probably never have experienced otherwise, and we meandered our way along these permissible routes until we reached our destination at Lindisfarne.

So what has all that got to do with international trade? Well the 2001 outbreak had a massive impact on the country’s economy and agricultural exports, and not just in monetary terms. Figures vary enormously, but it is estimated that as many as 6 million animals had to be slaughtered and taken out of the food chain, and the cost to British farming not too far short of £1billion, with compensation to farmers being a similar figure. Tourism and the rural economy were very badly affected with estimated combined losses of around £5billion. Confidence in British dairy and meat products plummeted, the knock-on effects for the UK agricultural supply sector included a decline in sales, livestock market closures and loss of business to livestock transporters. And it took some time for export bans to be lifted after the crisis was over. Even if, as is sometimes argued, more could have been done to prevent the outbreak, nobody could have predicted its scale.

On 21^st February 2001 the UK government banned the export of all live animals, meat and dairy products, with the EU imposing a initial temporary ban until 1^st March. Horse racing fixtures were banned initially for a week but later the ban on animal movements caused the cancellation of the annual Cheltenham Festival, and even the Ireland v Wales rugby international in Dublin was postponed. On 1^st March the French culled a second batch of 30,000 animals as the disease threatened to spread across Europe. By the middle of March the scare had gone global, with reports of incidences of the disease as far away as Argentina and Brazil. Supermarkets in some parts of the UK were starting to run out of meat and dairy products. So a lot to do with international trade!

I was travelling to Ireland at least once a month at that time, and every vehicle at every ferry port was sprayed with disinfectant and every foot passenger required to walk through a shallow disinfectant bath, both on boarding at Holyhead and even more thoroughly on disembarking at Dun Laoghaire. It was the same at Dublin Airport where passengers walked through a shallow disinfectant bath after arriving in the terminal building. That whole process caused delays at the ports and airports and there was an atmosphere bordering on paranoia, and the procedures lasted way beyond the eventual lifting of export bans and the UK being declared clear of the disease. So yes, foot and mouth had a massive impact.

One of our key messages to companies who want to expand their export business is that they should have a five year plan for exports. The plan will help you to target markets, identify times when you should make sales visits to those markets, how much budget you should set aside for each target market, and how much business you expect to win in each case. The plan should also feature major events in a market that might affect the efficiency of your business, or the speed at which you can convert enquiries into orders. Many of those things can be timetabled, but natural events such as the Foot & Mouth outbreak cannot be put into a plan because they are not within our control and we cannot predict them.

And to end on a further sobering note, I had enjoyed excellent business through a fantastic distributor in Turkey for three consecutive years to the point where a forecast for the following year was conservatively estimated at £400,000. Then there was an earthquake in Turkey, and the actual figure for the following year was £7,164, such was its impact. So your plan needs to be flexible and you should be able to change course and respond seamlessly to events that are out of your control.