The impact of the foot-and-mouth outbreak on the rural economy is to be examined by the government's Commission for Rural Communities, as part of a report requested by the prime minister, Gordon Brown, into ways in which the rural economy can be strengthened.

The CRC said: "It is vital to rural communities that the public continue to visit the countryside and that businesses continue to trade with rural areas and they are not affected by the mistaken belief that isolated incidents of foot-and-mouth disease necessitate the closure of rural England."