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Farmers slam beef market proposals

- 14 February 2001
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14 February 2001



Farmers slam beef market proposals


By Donald MacPhail

BRITISH farmers claim they are being sacrificed by Brussels in a bid to tackle the collapse of the European beef market due to BSE.

The National Farmers Union claims a seven-point plan from the European Commission is ill-conceived, unnecessary and damaging to British farmers.

NFU president Ben Gill pledged tooth and nail to fight the plan, adopted by commissioners in Strasbourg on Tuesday (13 February).

“It would be a tragedy if UK beef farmers were sacrificed at a time when confidence is beginning to return to our markets after all the traumas of BSE.”

Among proposals to reduce the volume of unsold beef is the reintroduction of a 90-head limit for Beef Special Premium payments.

A minimum increase in the percentage of heifers eligible for the Suckler Cow Premium and a cut in stocking density rates have also been put forward.

Mr Gill said: “We have worked hard to demonstrate that British beef is amongst the safest in the world.

“The UK beef industry is predominantly grassland-based. These changes are unnecessary.”

Mr Gill has written to commissioners saying more attention should be given to control measures and informing consumers of efforts to stem the disease.

And he called on UK agriculture minister Nick Brown to fight for big changes to the proposals at a European Agriculture Council meeting in two weeks.

Robert Forster, chief executive of Britains National Beef Association, described the European measures as “unbelievably panic-stricken”.

He warned that the measures would have their greatest impact on innocent member states in three or four years time.

Its ideas contain nothing that will strike at the heart of the problem and reverse the crisis in consumer confidence, which is the root cause of the mounting cost and market instability, he added.

The NBA has called for tough measures, including a EU-wide permanent ban on meat and bonemeal and an over thirty month cull, to restore consumer confidence.

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