BSE breeding case: a couple "looking to the future" after the test

The farmer couple at the center of a BSE discovery in Aberdeenshire spoke for the first time of its ordeal.

A "mad cow disease" was discovered at Boghead Farm, Thomas and Fiona Jackson in Lumsden in October.

Mr. Jackson told Landward of BBC Scotland that he was absent at his mother's funeral when the news was released.

Tests later showed that four cattle slaughtered on the farm as a precaution did not have the disease.

The case – involving a five-year-old animal – was identified before entering the human food chain.

Investigations are underway to try to trace the source of the epidemic.

• "Mad cow disease": what is BSE?

Boghead is a family farm, with a small herd of Aberdeen Angus ancestry.

The couple has been working there for the last six years since moving to Gloucestershire.

They had a cow that they thought had hypermagnesemia, a magnesium disorder, and she had been treated by a veterinarian.

However, two days later, the cow is dead.

& # 39; Big mistake & # 39;

Jackson said: "About a week later, we received a call from animal health, stating that" your animal had been tested for BSE ".

"My initial thought was not to be so stupid, I just thought that they had made a big mistake here.

"As far as I'm concerned, we were the least likely person to present a case."

Mr. Jackson was absent at his mother's funeral when he learned that an official press release regarding the discovery made on a farm in Aberdeenshire County would be published the next day.

& # 39; A broken man & # 39;

He said: "I have been practicing agriculture for about 45 years, I try to do some kind of reasonable work, and all of a sudden, you are of global interest for all the wrong reasons."

His wife said, "Well, it was hard work for me: literally in tears, and I just wanted Thomas to stop cultivating, to stop what he always did, just because he was so overwhelming.

"I would say that Thomas was broken, so, so much, such a shock, so upsetting.

"I was not there when the animals were asleep, Thomas was.

"I came to see him, I just watched him and I thought that he was only a broken man, he worked so hard all his life for these animals, he loves his animals, he talks to his animals, he talks to them more than his wife sometimes, but they are really important to him, that is his livelihood. "

"We have a future"

The case was treated as an isolated case and all restrictions imposed on the farm were lifted.

Mr. Jackson said about his future in agriculture: "It's all that I've really done, my whole life and all our material assets are invested in this farm." Is not something you will put at the last minute. "

His wife echoed: "As Thomas just said, farming is his life, and it's also my life, so we have a future here."

There have been 16 cases of BSE in the UK in the last seven years.

In contrast, thousands of cattle were infected at the height of the BSE crisis in the 1980s and 1990s.

More than four million animals have been slaughtered in an attempt to end the disease.

The full interview can be viewed on Landward Friday at 7:30 pm on BBC One Scotland, at 4:30 pm Saturday on BBC Two Scotland and on the iPlayer.