October 18, 2006

UK beef industry questions quality of imports

Some of the more than one million tonnes of beef Britons eat every year fail to meet UK food safety standards because they mostly consist of imports, said Robert Forster, chief executive of the National Beef Association (NBA).

The UK beef industry is only 71 percent self-sufficient, according to the Meat & Livestock Commission, which makes imports a necessity. The UK mainly imports from Ireland.

Almost four in five beef farmers in the UK have gone though various costly and time-consuming inspections to qualify for their assurance certificates. However, in Ireland, only around 8 percent of producers have qualified for their scheme, he said.

Forster said while UK supermarkets insist on farm assurance for British beef, they do not place such requirements on Irish imports.

Forster also questioned the math used by Bord Bia, the beef marketing agency of Ireland.

Bord Bia had stated that only 6500 farms in Ireland are farm assured.

Based on UK consumption of 487,000 Irish cattle a year, exporters in Ireland would have to get 75 heads of cattle every year from those 6,500 farms. However, local statistics show that the average herd size is only 14. This showed that many of the cattle would have to come from other places besides the approved farms. 

Bord Bia was reluctant to reply to the charges of the NBA.