After BSE ban, British beef producers will seek to win back EU

LONDON (AP)--British beef producers face a long battle to win back European Union customers when the decade-old export ban imposed because of bovine spongiform encephalopathy is lifted May 3, farmers and industry officials said May 2.

"The industry is viewing this as a fresh start altogether," said Bob Walker, a spokesman for the National Farmers Union, adding that it could take British producers a couple of years to recover the market share they lost overnight in March 1996. "It is almost like starting from scratch."

The European Union has agreed to lift the ban after its veterinarians concluded that Britain has fulfilled conditions to contain the spread of BSE. It says incidence of the illness BSE, fell from 37,280 cases in Britain in 1992 to 342 in 2004.

The Meat and Livestock Commission, a British industry group, welcomed the lifting of the export ban as an end to a long nightmare for British producers, reopening markets that were shut off to them when it became clear there was a link between BSE a deadly equivalent in humans.

But producers cannot expect a swift flood of orders for British beef from France, formerly their largest export market in the EU, or other countries in the bloc. Some consumers might still be wary of British beef, said Jon Bullock, a spokesman for the commission.

"We are not going to simply pick up where we left off," he said. "We have to go out there and win back markets."

In 1995, the last full year that Britain was allowed to export beef products and live animals to the rest of the EU, exports totaled 274,000 tons worth 520 million pounds (euro750 million).

In Britain itself, farmers might see a rise in prices they receive for their meat and animals because of higher demand from the reopening of EU markets, but it is not immediately clear if this will be passed on to British consumers at the retail level, Bullock said.

Some countries might be swifter than others to react to the lifting of the ban, said Jean Pierre Garnier, export manager at the commission. Greece, the Netherlands and Spain are likely candidates for this because in general their importers tend to react more quickly to changes in supply than countries such as France and Germany, he said.

Walker said British beef is considered a delicacy in France and some restaurateurs there have been in touch with British exporters to talk about the post-ban era.

"There are a number of Parisian restaurateurs who are keen to see it available to them again," Walker said.

Animal rights activists opposed to the export of live calves staged a protest in London and presented a petition to Agriculture Minister Ben Bradshaw urging that this trade be halted.

A group called Compassion in World Farming says calves reared on the Continent suffer more cramped conditions than in Britain, are given less food to eat and made to sleep on concrete floors with no bedding.

"There is also this horrific journey. Often if they survive the journey, they succumb to secondary illnesses. Our message is don't start this vile export again," said British actress Joanna Lumley, who led the protest.

Date: 5/25/06

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