MLC predicts 66% jump in imports from 205,000t last year to 340,000t in 2002 BSE/FMD leave legacy of soaring import levels FMD is becoming in some respects a more damaging influence on the British beef supply chain than was the 1996 BSE catastrophe, though the full implications for retailers and consumers have until now been harder to recognise because the latest crisis is not seriously disturbing demand. Total consumption more or less stable apart from some predictable changes in shoppers' preferences within the category would be the typical response from retail sector managers and analysts asked to assess the recent history and present state of the market. Five and a half years ago BSE was obviously a disaster, as customers in the stores simply stopped buying beef. This time round household purchase data show no dramatic drop in either expenditure or quantities bought, retailers' awareness of serious trouble in the industry being gained only from the media or from wholesalers' reports of problems at the killing plants and out on the farms. Even the official figures from the production pipeline hardly hint at trauma: DEFRA's estimates put the January-September national cattle kill down less than 10% from a year earlier, and the MLC calculates the average deadweight price about 3% softer. Bigger annual changes have often occurred in normal market cycles. Imports are attracting some attention, and these give a clue to the fundamental change in the structure of the market and the domestic industry. Whereas BSE caused beef imports to surge 30%, from 173,000 tonnes in pre-crisis 1995 to 226,000t in 1997, the MLC's latest prediction is a 66% jump from 205,000t last year, before FMD, to 340,000t in 2002. However, if the FMD disruption is looked at as something like a repeat performance of BSE and all the production and trade balance effects of the two crises are taken into account, the beef sector transformation becomes clear. Total consumption is about the same as a decade ago, but by next year home production will have almost halved in little more than a decade while imports will have nearly doubled. Exports, of course, have vanished. {{MEAT }}

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