RURAL affairs minister Alun Michael has urged farmers to take a "can do" approach in coming up with viable and sustainable ways of farming in the wake of foot-and-mouth.

During his first official visit to the Lake District, Mr Michael yesterday met with Levens farmer John Geldard, who showed him round the site of the Lakelands Food Park, at Plumgarths, near Kendal, which is due to open this autumn.

He looked around the site, just off the Crook roundabout, where work is well under way on turning unused farm buildings at the Geldard's original family farm into five food production units and a retail outlet.

The minister praised the development as an excellent example of a sustainable way of farming, and said it would be up to other individuals to take a similar initiative and carve out new markets for their produce.

"This is a brilliant example of making the most of an opportunity," he said, adding that it showed a "can do" attitude that he was hoping more farmers would follow.

Mr Geldard told the minister of the "real fear" farmers in the area were feeling about the future, adding he was particularly concerned at the effect this latest crisis had had on the next generation of farmers.

Mr Michael said he sympathised with this but added: "Farming is going through a torrid time at the moment but it was going through a difficult time before foot-and-mouth disease struck.

"Yes, we have got problems, but that also brings opportunities, and that is very much the philosophy that we want to support."

Mr Michael, who was on a three-day visit to the area, also told The Westmorland Gazette that it was important that tourism operators learned from the crisis and adapted the way they worked, which was why the grants for businesses suffering as a result of the crisis had been targeted towards IT training or marketing.

"We have got a great deal of sympathy for people who are desperate about surviving through the winter so they are able to trade again next summer, but what we can't do is give hand-outs to meet people's losses that their businesses have suffered as a result of foot-and-mouth.

We wouldn't do that if there had been a devastating summer in terms of the weather."

Mr Michael said he was extremely worried about the " tail" of the disease and the resilience of the outbreak which was taking longer to eliminate than he hoped in certain parts of the county.

But he added that it was also crucial for areas where the disease had been contained, that restrictions were lifted and the rest of the rural economy was allowed to get back to business.

" Farmers are not being overlooked, indeed I've been very impressed at the extent to which the Government has focused on the need to help farmers recover.

But it's also crucial that we help the rural economy as a whole to recover."

The minister later enjoyed a tour around the Lake District National Park visitor centre, at Brockhole, where he launched the Countryside Agency's 'Welcome Back' campaign to encourage walkers back to the countryside.

He said it was critical that the message got through to people that they are welcome in the countryside this summer, adding that tourist operators were " enthusiastic and desperate" to see visitors returning to the Lake District.

Mr Michael was today (Friday) meeting with members of the Cumbria foot-and-mouth task force who were hoping to impress upon him the scale of the problems the county faced as a result of the outbreak.