CRISIS-hit farmers were raising a glass to the Government this week after hearing their woes were at an end, thanks to the internet.

Ministers are fine-tuning a strategy to "catalyse broadband roll-out in rural areas".

The strategy is to ensure that the UK has the most extensive and competitive broadband market in the industrialised world by 2005.

High-speed connections are the way of the future, and Westminster's determined the benefits should not be hogged by "townies".

Farmers whose cattle are smouldering in the fields outside Worcester will be able to do far more than swap text messages about MAFF on their mobile phones in a few years' time.

A broadband connection will mean they'll be able to see postage-stamp-sized video images of each other on the handsets.

Foot-and-mouth restrictions may bar livestock farmers from stepping outside their properties.

But they won't need to worry in the truly digital age, as they order nasal hair-clippers and Bart Simpson coffee mugs at the click of a mouse.

Downloading video from the internet will be much quicker in the world of tomorrow too.

Little wonder e-Minister Patricia Hewitt announced last week: "High-speed internet connections will be as important to our economy as modern roads and railways (High-speed and railways in the same sentence? Are you sure this is right? Ed).

"In the aftermath of foot-and-mouth disease, broadband connections could play a crucial role in helping to revitalise rural economies in hard-hit areas."

The way ahead is clear.

Displaying the same clarity of thought that dispatched foot-and-mouth so speedily, Ministers have already formed a Broadband Stakeholder Group.

Grasping the nettle bravely, the group has agreed to establish four task groups to "drive forward work in key areas".

Surely all that remains is for a Broadband Tsar to be appointed.