Brussels to ban British meat exports
21 February 2001
Brussels to ban British meat exports
By FWi staff
BRUSSELS is expected to ban all meat exports from Britain following the first outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the country for 20 years.
Exports of live animals and meat from pigs, cattle, sheep and goats will be suspended until the next European Standing Veterinary Committee meeting.
A Meat and Livestock Commission spokesman said the decision would be formally announced by Brussels on Wednesday (21 February).
The National Pig Association is also reporting that a ban is imminent.
The next veterinary committee meeting is scheduled for 6-7 March. But European officials may decide to hold an emergency meeting before then.
The ban would come as Ministry of Agriculture officials start checking thousands of farms that supplied an Essex abattoir at the centre of the outbreak.
Abattoir manager Paul Cheale, of Cheale Meats, Brentwood, said MAFF officials were testing thousands of animals which had sent animals for slaughter.
“They are checking on all the farms that have supplied us in the last fortnight – and that could be thousands,” he told FARMERS WEEKLY.
The disease was confirmed in a batch of pigs which arrived at the abattoir last Friday (16 February) from Buckinghamshire, Yorkshire and the Isle of Wight.
Greenway Farm, at Great Horwood, Buckinghamshire, belongs to Mike Sheldon, former chief executive of the National Pig Association.
But Mr Cheale said it was wrong to point the finger at any of the three units, saying that disease may have originated in cattle and then been passed to pigs.
Foot-and-mouth has yet to be confirmed at any of the farms in question, suggesting that it may have come from an as yet unidentified source.
NFU President Ben Gill said the outbreak threatened to devastate the British livestock industry and farmers had to focus on stopping the disease in its tracks.
“This outbreak has potentially catastrophic implications for the whole of the British livestock industry,” he said.
“The priority now is to contain it and we fully support all the measures which have been speedily put in place by MAFF.”