ANOTHER YEARS STRIFE
ANOTHER YEARS STRIFE
YEAR
Success of farmer protests highlighting the merits of British beef and the Meat and Livestock Commissions survey findings that almost three-quarters of the public would prefer to eat British rather than imported beef offer some encouragement at the start of what is likely to be yet another traumatic year for the British beef industry.
As we head into 1998, prospects for significant improvements in clean beef and store cattle prices look limited. Relief will only come if sterling weakens, progress is made lifting the beef ban, or there is a reduction in imported product.
To this end, later this year there will be new opportunities to promote British beef. Most clean cattle will not have had the chance to contract BSE through diet; and there will be improved quality assurance through the Beef Labelling Scheme and Assured British Meat. As this supplement explains, ABM aims to deliver food safety assurances from farm to table.
And although costly, controls at abattoirs already in place to remove specified risk materials, and the introduction of MAFFs Cattle Traceability System, will further safeguard meat quality.
Introduction of new genetic information for beef cattle will enable producers to identify better bulls too, whose progeny grow faster and produce carcasses of superior conformation.
Those seeking to improve traceability and reduce disease risks by breeding their own herd replacements will also benefit from the new estimated breeding values for maternal traits.
On the dairy side, margins are also tightening. But as we highlight in the following pages, there is scope to improve technical efficiency. Much can still be done, for example, to improve fertility and calf welfare. And producers looking to cost control can also take heart from research that should enable cattle to meet more of their protein requirements off grass.