SIR: The risk from eating beef - if it exists at all - is infinitesimally small.

With the attempt to ban hunting, Parliament is trying to take away our freedom of choice, now, with the beef ban, it is taking away choice itself.

We are in a profound agricultural crisis, created by the utter failure. of urban administrators to listen to an increasingly embattled and embittered countryside. The attack on the Rural Development Agency and the shift of resources to urban areas simply underlines the huge damage which is being done.

The future of the countryside is at stake, and a march through London is being organised by the Countryside Alliance for Ist March 1998. All those who are concerned with the future of the whole countryside are urged to come.

J Olstead,

North West regional PRO

Countryside Alliance

The Old Town Hall

Kennington Road, London

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.