The objective of the research was to gauge the pattern and degree of the impact of the Foot and Mouth crisis on the wider, non-agricultural, rural economy, focusing on the effects on the microbusinesses that comprise the vast majority of rural firms.

• Project Dates: 2001
• Project Leader: Katy Bennett
• Staff: Katy Bennett, Andrew Cattermole, Andrew Donaldson, Craig Elliot, Philip Lowe, Jane Midgley, Jeremy Phillipson and Neil Ward
• Sponsors: Durham County Council

The specific aims of the research were:

(i) to identify the scale and the extent of the impact across different sectors of the rural economy (including sectors likely to be little affected);

(ii) to examine how affected firms are responding to the crisis; and

(iii) to identify what forms of aid measures could ease the short-term problems that affected firms face.

A survey was conducted of a sample of 180 rural microbusinesses drawing on a database of 2000 microbusinesses in the North East of England held by the Centre for Rural Economy.