This paper examines the relationship between science and personhood in the context of farming in the uk, and specifically in relation to the 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Intensive farming systematically denies that animals are “persons”, beings with thoughts and feelings like ourselves. In contrast, many animals, including farm animals, are treated as individual persons in everyday life. During the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001, the contrast between these attitudes was prticularly clear. This paper shows how science, and people’s respect for it as an arbiter of truth, has shaped the representation and treatment of farm animals during this and other recent crises.