Poor MBM data hamper BSE survey
9 February 2001
Poor MBM data hamper BSE survey
By FWi staff
LACK of data on UK ruminant meat and bonemeal exports is hampering efforts to establish BSE levels in third countries.
Geographical assessments are needed to decide which countries must remove specified risk materials from their cattle from 1 April, if they are to continue exporting beef to the EU.
The assessments rely heavily on the number of live cattle imported from the UK in the 10 years to 1996, when the trade was banned, and the amount of ruminant protein shipped during the same period.
But it has emerged that, even though there are figures on the total level of MBM exports, these were never broken down between different origins.
MBM exports were lumped together with “flour, meals and pellets, meat and meat offal unfit for human consumption”.
Official data, released in a parliamentary written answer, show that from 1988 to 1996 some 67,240t of this material was sold to EU countries.
Another 145,920t was shipped to third countries. Some of it may have been bovine MBM, though there is no way of knowing how much.
The EU Commission has expressed its frustration that, while ruminant MBM was banned from ruminant feed in the UK as long ago as 1988, it was still exported.
Only in 1996 did the commission impose a blanket ban on exports of UK beef and beef products.
We are not happy that the UK allowed this stuff to be exported, when it had already banned it in its own cattle feed,” said a spokesman.
But the UK Renderers Association maintains it was doing nothing illegal.
Meanwhile, Japan is poised ban imports of European beef with the introduction of rules requiring all beef imports to be certified BSE-free.
These new rules could be introduced as early as Friday (09 February) reports the Financial Times.