Cattle markets in the UK reopened this month, almost a year after they were closed to try to stop the spread of the country’s foot and mouth outbreak.
Movement restrictions on cattle were also lifted, meaning that licences are no longer needed prior to moving. Animals can now be moved under general licences, but movements must still be recorded.
Annnouncing the changes, UK food minister Lord Whitty said: “We must strike a balance between the needs of industry and the veterinary advice that some disease control precautions are still necessary.” Under new rules, cattle markets must be licensed by the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Licences will be granted to markets with good biosecurity to try to prevent further cases of foot and mouth disease. Each auction market will be required to have its own biosecurity manager.
In January, the UK was put back on the foot and mouth-free list by the Office International des Epitoozies. This makes exporting animal produce much easier for the UK. It came after England and Wales were declared foot and mouth-free on Tuesday January 17, three months after the last case was reported in Cumbria.
Also in January, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) released its Lessons to be learned fom the foot and mouth disease outbreak of 2001 report.
The main points in Lessons to be learned were that controls on illegal meat imports in the UK need to be improved and that the government needs to have a proper contingency plan for such crises. The report also said that livestock movement controls did not balance disease control and commercial needs.
However, speaking to Dairy Industries International, David Handley, chairman of UK pressure group Farmers For Action, said he was “incensed” by the NFU report, which criticises the handling of the epidemic by the UK government. Handley claimed this was a U-turn from the NFU’s pro-government stance during the crisis.
Handley added that the UK dairy industry was “decimated” by the country’s foot and mouth outbreak, with milk supplies “quite badly affected”.
However, the dairy industry was not as badly affected as some agricultural areas. Milk co-operative Zenith said that its suppliers had lost 330 herds in the UK’s foot and mouth outbreak, but had seen no drop in milk production because output by other members had made up for the shortfall.
Meanwhile, a report commissioned by the UK government at the height of the foot and mouth epidemic was also released in January. The future of farming and food looks at the whole of the UK food industry.
The report calls for wide ranging changes covering local produce, food labelling, animal diseases, government funding and communication between different parts of the food chain. If implemented, these changes would have a significant impact on the dairy industry.
The report finds that Britain’s farming and food industry is currently “unsustainable, in every sense of that term”. It claims that food prices are too high and that the food and farming industries have become detached from the rest of the economy.
The report makes many recommendations, but comes to the conclusion that: “It is up to the food and farming industry to spot and seize its opportunities.” The study recommends that a food chain centre be established to bring together all parties in the food chain, including processors and consumers. It recommends that the centre should identify how efficiency savings can be achieved, especially in the fresh produce sector.