October 4, 2007

 

EU to resume British meat trade

 

 

Veterinary experts in the European Union agreed to ease its restriction on British meat exports starting October 12 provided there will be no new outbreaks of foot-and-mouth-disease outside the protective zone where a ban remains in place.

 

Philip Tod, spokesman for the EU Health Commissioner said relaxing of the ban will only be adopted "if there are no further outbreaks outside a 200-kilometre (120-mile) area around the surveillance zones ... and only under certain, strict conditions."

 

The European Union in August imposed a bloc-wide import ban on British meat and livestock following the foot and mouth outbreak in UK.

 

The EU consumes 90 percent of British farmers' beef exports.

 

British authorities has earlier lifted a temporary control zone around the latest suspected case of foot and mouth disease in southern England, after tests proved negative, officials said.

 

The three kilometre radius zone was set up yesterday around land near Haywards Heath in Sussex.

 

Experts from the 27 EU member states, meeting in a Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health, agreed that the whole of Britain should remain a high-risk area as regards live farm animals and untreated products, meaning that the export ban on these remains in place.

 

For export resumption next week, animals must be kept in the same place 30 days under strict measures prior to slaughter, and for 21 days prior to being moved.

 

No new livestock may be introduced to the farm.

 

When the animals get to the slaughterhouse, they must be killed immediately, and ante- and post-mortem inspections for foot and mouth disease carried out.

 

However the British farming woes are not restricted to foot and mouth disease.

 

Last week, for the first time, cases of the bluetongue livestock disease were discovered in southeast England.

 

The EU veterinary experts agreed to impose a separate, but intersecting, restriction zone around those cases.

 

The bluetongue problem within the European Union has increased swiftly since the first outbreak of the BTV-8 strain, for which there is no vaccination, in northern Europe last year.

 

The bluetongue restriction zone covers four counties in southeast England; Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire.

 

Last month the EU veterinary experts agreed to lift the foot and mouth export ban, only to re-impose it almost immediately as a new case was discovered.