Sir Ben Gill:NFU president who ran the country during the foot-and-mouth crisis

摘要

Sir Ben Gill, who has died aged 64, will be remembered as the NFU president who led farmers through the dark days of foot-and-mouth disease in 2001. But his legacy includes the decoupling of subsidies and the Red Tractor logo -which now appears on f12bn of food and drink annually.Sir Ben served as NFU president from 1998 to 2004, having worked his way up through the union from livestock chairman to vice-president and then deputy president. His tenure as union leader coincided with some of farming's toughest times in living memory.