A growing number of “hobby farmers” who keep livestock mainly as pets threaten the future of British agriculture unless they undergo tough licensing and inspection regimes, the National Farmers’ Union claimed yesterday.

The farmers are being blamed for the second wave of the foot-and-mouth outbreak in Surrey last September. Peter Kendall, the president of the NFU, claims that without new controls on them they could be the backdoor route for new disease outbreaks.

Mr Kendall said: “We have to ask, should hobby farmers be allowed to jeopardise the professional industry? In these days of bluetongue, foot-and-mouth disease, avian flu and increased disease threats from climate change, should these keepers not need a licence, or some form of competence, to look after farm animals?”

Mr Kendall, who runs an arable farm with his brother in Bedfordshire, said: “I need to be inspected, and I don’t see why everyone keeping animals should not have the same inspections. These people cannot be allowed to put agriculture at risk.”

He said that the NFU had made a formal request for new supervision of hobby farmers in a submission to the Anderson inquiry, which is examining the handling of last year’s Surrey foot-and-mouth outbreak.

He said: “We’ve identified the need to look at the risks posed to professional agriculture by the growing band of lifestyle hobby-keepers, who are allowed to operate without inspection or even training.”

Organisations representing smallholders rejected the claim. Mary Marshall, of the Smallholders’ Forum, said: “I do not think it helpful or productive to be blaming hobby farmers. Hobby farmers often spend more on proper prevention practices than do commercial farmers, and tend to have more veterinary involvement and spend more time per animal. It could therefore be said they are less of a risk.”Paul Roger, senior vice-president of the Sheep Protection Society, was also angry. “Hobby farmers should not be demonised – sometimes it is commercial farmers not recording things properly that cause problems.” he said.

“Most hobby farmers have their animals close to them, while some commercial farmers – who by their very nature operate as a business – rent land remote from their own and so it is not easy for them to oversee their animals properly.”

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