Exclusive Julian Hunt Ross Finnie, Scotland's high profile rural affairs minister, is urging his colleagues in Whitehall and Brussels to rethink their cull policy for tackling foot and mouth ­ and says they should look again at the issue of vaccination. For most politicians and industry leaders, the idea of vaccinating animals against the disease is anathema because it would damage exports to some countries. But Finnie told The Grocer this week the idea had not been investigated fully. "The present vaccines are flawed in that they don't quite cope with all the strains, and you have the prospect of leaving animals as carriers of the disease. "So I would like to ask [scientists] if it's theoretically possible to develop a serum that would do the job efficiently without leaving animals as carriers? "If it is theoretically possible, we should be allocating a sum of money for research into a new serum because I frankly don't think we can get away in the future with carrying out a cull policy. I believe it was right and I defend it absolutely. But I don't believe we will get away with that again." Finnie added: "We have now had a serious outbreak which has been hugely dislocating and caused pain and suffering for the farming community and to many others. "And I don't think the public or the farming community would support a cull policy if it was to happen again ­ and I pray to God it doesn't ­ in the next five or so years. I think we have a small interval in which we really do have to look at alternatives." He believes the issue of vaccination could be explored as part of the UK's planned inquiry into the foot and mouth outbreak. But Finnie added: "I hope the inquiry is fairly narrowly defined. I don't think the industry either needs, or deserves, to have people crawling all over it just because of foot and mouth disease." The minister said the inquiry should focus on identifying where the disease came from, understanding how it spread, and examining the risks associated with the movement of animals. {{NEWS }}