Churches are being urged to stand by to offer support to farming families, warning that the latest Foot and Mouth outbreak with has triggered the reimposition of an EU export ban, could spell disaster for the farming community.

The Anglican Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Rev John Pritchard, whose diocese includes rural areas, has promised the support of the church to the farming communities involved in the latest outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

The Rev Clifton Kirkpatrick, who moderates the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), is urging fast-food giant Burger King to work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to address wages and working conditions in the tomato fields.

Bread for the World, a national Christian anti-hunger network, plans to distribute thousands of educational kits to churches around the USA urging churchgoers to lobby members of Congress to change federal agricultural and nutrition programmes in favour of the world's ‚Ä' and the country's ‚Ä' poor.