Prime Minister Tony Blair is to begin a series of talks with farmers and those hit by the foot-and-mouth crisis.

Speaking during a visit to Sussex last night he announced that meetings would start today and said he had no idea how the outbreak would develop.

Meanwhile it emerged that discussions have begun with the Army to use soldiers to cull wild animals in a bid to contain the disease.

Agriculture Minister Nick Brown said the total number of cases had risen to 183 and revealed that up to 500,000 sheep due to start lambing could face slaughter.

Britain's chief veterinary officer, Jim Scudamore, said the country was in the throes of a "major outbreak" as 19 more cases were confirmed yesterday.

Mr Blair told a question and answer session of party members and supporters in Hove: "I will be having a series of meetings not just with the farmers but with the wider rural community to see what help we can give them.

"There's huge concern out there about foot-and-mouth disease and that concern is no longer there just for the farming community but for the wider rural community - shops, businesses, hotels.

"I know it's very frustrating at the moment because we simply don't know how foot-and-mouth is going to develop to its fullest extent. We are monitoring it every day."

Mr Blair said the Government was already holding daily meetings to evaluate the situation.

His comments last night came in response to concerns voiced by tourism bosses that their losses from the outbreak could dwarf those of farmers.

More than 300 people, many self-confessed Labour Party members and supporters, as well as students, members of the business community and residents, packed into a hall at Hove Park Upper School in Nevill Road, Hove, which had been turned into a Labour Party Conference scene for a question and answer session.

There were huge arc lights trained on to the Prime Minister who was surrounded with hoardings around the room with the Labour slogans: Prosperity for All and New Labour, New Britain.

Contemporary music was played to the buzzing audience in anticipation of Mr Blair taking centre stage.

After an introduction by Hove MP Ivor Caplin, Mr Blair, looking relaxed in a white shirt and red tie, joked with the audience about the school's Latin motto and the many years since he had studied Latin, before turning to the more serious subject of foot-and mouth.

Mr Caplin invited brief questions from the audience, ranging from the controversy surrounding the plans for a rubbish incinerator in the area to class sizes and defence policy.

Peacehaven campaigner and Labour Party member John Carden, who has been one of the key figures to push for the South Downs to be made a National Park, asked the Prime Minister about the growing concern about a refuse incinerator planned for the area.

Mr Carden told Mr Blair: "People don't want this, we want some form of recycling system. We don't want an incinerator." Mr Blair said the Government was aware that re-cycling was a better alternative to incineration but it would take time to move from the current methods of refuse disposal to recycling.

He said: "This is something I'm familiar with but how quickly can you move to re-cycling from incinerators. We are making progress but all I can honestly say to you is it will take a long time."

The Reverend Stephen Terry, of the Aldrington Team Ministry in Hove, a former member of a community health council, asked Mr Blair if patients would lose an independent mouthpiece if CHCs were replaced by advocates employed and paid by the very health trusts patients could be complaining about.

Mr Blair recalled meeting Mr Terry at another meeting and assured the audience patients would be represented by an independent body in the form of local patients' forums.

He said: "The reason we brought forward these proposals was nothing to do with not wanting the CHCs. The CHCs are effective in some parts and not in others. We are not trying to take out the accountability. There will be local patient forums and this does increase the degree of representation and accountability."

A student also asked Mr Blair why the minimum wage was not applicable to those under 18 who, claimed, should get paid at the same level as they had the same cost of living.

The PM replied: "It's a perfectly justifiable demand. We looked very carefully at the European experience and when we looked at France where there are very, very, high levels of youth unemployment, we decided to exempt that category of workers."

He said the scheme would be under constant review.

Mr Blair also took questions on defence policy, brownfield sites and the internet as well as a question on local government finance from The Place to Be chairman Simon Fanshawe.

But returning to Labour's achievements within the last four years, Mr Blair said: "What we've tried to do in the last four years is to create a road map for the future."

He said there was pressure to work more quickly and to do more but the Government had laid the foundations to continue its work in the coming years should it be re-elected to power.

He said to a round of applause: "I think we've run the economy competently and effectively."

At the end of the session, which lasted more than an hour, Mr Blair said of the last four years: "They are not going to say we were run by the trade unions, or unemployment was high when we left. What we have tried to do is to give people a sense of foundations being laid.

"I hope people will make the right choices so we can carry on and finish what we started. We have a lot to lose if we turn the clock back."

Three animal rights protesters waved banners and shouted slogans at Mr Blair, brandishing placards demanding Labour action to ban fox hunting.