Fischler spells out challenge for beef sector

Date: 18/07/1996

By Michael Mann

AGRICULTURE Commissioner Franz Fischler will present concrete proposals to reform the EU's troubled beef sector before the end of the month.

Among the ideas Fischler will discuss with EU farm ministers at their meeting next week are plans to increase the 400,000 tonne limit on beef intervention for 1996, and similarly raise the ceiling for next year above 350,000 tonnes.

Swift action was crucial, Fischler insisted yesterday (17 July), because production was about to enter its heaviest period of the year - with no sign of any real recovery in consumer demand - and because the draft budget for 1997 expenditure only made provision for a maximum of 220,000 tonnes of beef entering EU stores.

The Commissioner will also suggest increasing the premium paid to farmers using extensive farming methods, and tighter limits on farmers' rights to apply for the special beef premium.

He will call for the introduction of intervention for animals of eight to nine months of age and suggest forcing member states to offer farmers the chance to make use of the so-called “Herod premium”, under which calves are slaughtered shortly after birth.

Pointing to a 15&percent; decline in prices since the beginning of the crisis, Fischler urged the beef sector to pass on these reductions to consumers in an effort to boost falling consumption.

The Commissioner said promotional measures could only follow once some sort of labelling scheme had been established.

To overcome consumers' “psychological problem”, he said, it was crucial to “get information up to a sufficient level so the consumer knows what he can trust”.

Fischler said the total cost of the measures would be impossible to calculate until firm decisions had been taken, but stressed the crisis could account for “enormous amounts of money” unless strong action was taken.

Intervention purchases this year look set to top 600,000 tonnes, and Fischler said that the cost of buying in beef was likely to average between 210 and 230 million ecu for every 100,000 tonnes. Although he refused to be drawn on the subject, the probable costs of the measures will almost certainly herald controversial cuts in payments to the EU's cereal farmers.

Member states are already pushing for curbs on farm spending and Fischler stressed that aid to beef farmers and efforts to cut future production would have to come from existing CAP resources. The Commission will flag up its intention to reduce over-generous cereals and oilseed compensation payments in the Official Journal later this month.

While officials wrestle with ways of getting the beef sector back on track, British gelatine makers remain none the wiser as to whether new production standards adopted last month need to be tightened further.

When the new standards were adopted, gelatine became one of three products exempted from the export ban. But the status of British gelatine was suddenly thrown into doubt this week when new evidence came to light that new production methods might not be sufficient to guarantee the product's safety.

Meetings yesterday (17 July) of both the Scientific Veterinary Committee and Multi-Disciplinary Committee on BSE failed to produce any firm conclusions, leaving their next deliberations until late August.

With gelatine producers firmly in limbo, they will have to continue to export product manufactured from animals raised outside the UK. Despite the lifting of the ban on by-products, most UK processors have opted to use foreign raw materials rather than come into line with the new standards.