One in four BSE abattoirs to go


2 December 1999



One in four BSE abattoirs to go

By Alistair Driver

MORE than one in four abattoirs slaughtering older cattle potentially infected with BSE are to be taken out of the system, the Intervention Board has confirmed.

Eight abattoirs which slaughter cattle under the Over-Thirty-Months-Scheme (OTMS) will no longer be involved in the scheme from 4 January.

Currently 29 abattoirs are registered under the OTMS but the Intervention Board awarded contracts to only 21 out of 40 abattoirs that submitted new tenders.

The new contracts will run for 12 months but may be extended subject to the performance of each abattoir slaughtering cattle older than 30 months.

The National Farmers Union claimed that producers in some areas of the country were already suffering backlogs in getting OTMS cattle to abattoirs.

Ben Gill, NFU president, said farmers taking cattle to OTMS centres would now face higher transport costs and problems getting animals to collection centres.

Distances greater than 150 miles are already being cited, and the north-east, East Anglia and the south-west of England are likely to be badly affected.

Mr Gill said the NFU would raise farmers very real concerns expressed about the proposed changes to what he described as a “very necessary scheme”.

The government introduced the scheme at the height of the BSE crisis in 1996 to allay peoples fears that they might be exposed to infected with BSE.

“Extra costs and problems created by public safety measures such as this must not keep falling on to the shoulders of Britains beef industry,” said Mr Gill.

But the Intervention Board said that the slaughtering capacity of the scheme would remain “broadly the same”, even though fewer abattoirs would be involved.

The remaining abattoirs were well located in main production areas. Travelling times for animals to slaughter would not increase substantially, said a spokesman.

“Producers will continue to have access to the scheme through the network of 170 markets registered with the IB as liveweight collection centres,” he added.

About 800,000 animals are slaughtered each year under the OTMS scheme at an average rate of 15,000 animals a week.

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