The Northern Ireland Executive has made an urgent appeal to anyone with information on the illegal movement of animals in the North in recent weeks to come forward.
After an emergency session of the Executive the North's Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, said everyone in the North would suffer unless the Department of Agriculture was furnished with the necessary information to establish the source of two recent outbreaks of foot-and-mouth.
"Unfortunately there has been some movement of animals and unfortunately that movement has made it much more difficult to trace the source and to deal with the problem in its totality," he said.
Mr Mallon said the Executive was drafting contingency plans for the worst-case scenario but would be acting in tandem with the situation. The North had two more confirmed cases of the disease in the last three days. The first was recorded in south Armagh on March 1st.
"The North of Ireland is a very small place. It is a rural community, it is a mixed farming community and the effects here could be absolutely enormous if we do not have the basis to make the decisions," Mr Mallon added.
The North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, said it was essential farmers recognised their collective and personal responsibility, as they were the front line of defence against the disease.
He said it was "absolutely critical" that Department vets were able to source the outbreaks quickly.
"If this can be done within the next few days then we have the chance of getting ahead of this. The only people who can supply the information are those within the agricultural sector," he added.
Mr Trimble said the central issue was the movement of animals. As in the case where infected sheep brought illegally from Carlisle in northern England to a farm in south Armagh led to the first outbreak, officials were dealing with other "paperless transactions" at locations in the North.
The North's Minister of Agriculture, Ms Brid Rodgers, said movement of animals away from infected areas also needed to be traced for fear of the disease being spread further.
"If there has been movement of animals to other areas we need to get there and we need to cull immediately. But we can't get there if we don't know about the movement," she said.
"Please if there is anyone out there who knows anything, we need to know it immediately."
Ms Rodgers said at this point she had no indication that farmers had identified symptoms of the disease and had not contacted her Department.
"But what I do know is that we don't have all the information we need. The vast majority of farmers have acted responsibly and have done everything by the book.
"It would be a tragedy if those farmers were now to suffer along with the rest of the community, because a small minority of people have not done it by the book and have not been responsible," she added.
The Executive said it would provide whatever resources were necessary to prevent the spread of the disease and pledged its "collective commitment" to fight the outbreaks.