Pressure was mounting on the British government tonight to unveil a multi-million pound aid package for farmers to stave off a "rural revolt".
The rising toll of foot-and-mouth disease, confusion over mass slaughter and fears for the future of farming in Britain have pushed farmers to the brink of "all-out war", protest leaders warned.
Farmers For Action (FFA) said it was launching a legal battle after the government announced the mass cull of healthy livestock to stop the disease spreading.
"This is all-out war - and I don't use those words lightly," said spokesman Mr David Handley, who was also a leader of last year's fuel protests that brought much of Britain to a standstill.
"If this is the way they want to handle it I'm afraid they've got a fight on their hands."
One of the group's regional co-ordinators, Mr Andrew Spence, said farmers would barricade themselves in their farms rather than see healthy animals killed. The NFU denied reports that it would support that action.
Agriculture Minister Mr Nick Brown called on farmers to support the government in its bid to stamp out the virus.
"The war we should be fighting is against the virus. To be fighting each other is a ridiculous thing to do," he said, before apologising to farmers for confusion over his announcement yesterday over three kilometre-wide cull zones around centres of infection.
NFU president Mr Ben Gill said some farmers were suicidal after seeing their herds slaughtered and said their "torture" was compounded by the mistake.
Mr Gill said he would be asking the Government for a compensation package that would run into hundreds of millions of pounds and warned that livestock prices would rise when the time came to restock farms.
"The mass slaughters will condemn up to 300,000 pigs and sheep in Cumbria, and Dumfries and Galloway, to an automatic death sentence, whether infected or healthy," Britain's chief vet Dr Jim Scudamore said.
The confusion came as the number of confirmed cases of foot-and-mouth has risen to 264, including Northern Ireland.
Mr Brown said he would also be discussing the knock-on effects of the disease on non-agricultural industries, including tourism. Tourism chiefs have called for £5 million in extra promotional funding for the British Tourist Authority to counter fears abroad about the outbreak, which has triggered a downturn in visits to Britain.
PA