Decision: Lord Whitty

The government has announced the fate of two million lambs which cannot be exported because of the foot and mouth outbreak.

Food minister Lord Whitty told an NFU crisis conference on Thursday that the government will buy the "light lambs", which are only sold in Europe, slaughter them and put the carcasses into cold storage. The supermarket chain Asda has agreed to step in and help sell the carcasses to minimise loses.

This type of livestock has been restricted from being exported because it comes from the Wales, Devon and Cumbria; the three areas hit hardest by the foot and mouth crisis. For many farmers it is their sole income so the delay in the decision has left them with mounting debt, the NFU has claimed.

Though now some of the lambs will be sold in the UK the government admits the market for it is small and expects that the majority will have to be destroyed.

Whitty's speech at Warwick University included the decision to buy-out an entire market to counter a hard-hitting warning that the government wanted to implement major change following the outbreak.

"We need a new regulatory framework; we need modern industry practices; never again can the taxpayer be obliged to pay costs which in other industries would be absorbed by the industry and its insurers," he said. "I am in the construction, not the demolition, business: we are here to build a sustainable industry for the future, not destroy it."

"Sheep farming will have to change. In the long term, support from government and from the EU cannot be based on headage payments and production subsidies. The public interest is twofold: ensuring a competitive and healthy sheep sector and in ensuring environmental objectives for our flocks and our landscape," the minister said.

The latest round of slaughter will add to the four million sheep already culled since the crisis began - more than a tenth of the UK flock. The total number of foot and mouth cases has now risen to 1923.

NFU president Ben Gill said the farmers affected were the "forgotten victims" of the crisis.

"For every farmer who has lost animals because of the foot and mouth outbreak it has been an unspeakable nightmare. But for every one of them there are many 'forgotten victims' whose animals have not been slaughtered who are in an even worse situation without any light at the end of the tunnel," he said.