Beef from animals aged over thirty months could re-enter the food chain by mid-October following a long-awaited recommendation by the Food Standards Agency that the Over Thirty Months Scheme should be replaced with a robust BSE testing system.
The FSA’s recommendation, made to the government on Monday, is the first sure step towards an end to the scheme and comes eight months after ministers first announced that a managed transition to BSE testing would take place.
“We are now waiting for government ministers to accept and implement the FSA’s recommendations,” said MLC economic manager for beef Duncan Sinclair. “This should
take around a month, with implementation taking another month. So OTM beef could re-enter the food chain as soon as mid-October.”
Rob Newbery from the NFU’s food chain policy unit said the switch to the new testing programme and away from the OTMS would begin a little later, in late October.
“The timetable is as we hoped it would be. The FSA has said ‘yes, we recommend a switch to testing and end to the OTMS’. Now we have to wait and hope that the Secretary of State for Health, Patricia Hewitt, accepts its recommendations.”
Sinclair warned that, whatever the outcome, the OTMS would not end overnight. “There will be a transitional period, until at least mid-December, where producers can opt to either enter their cattle into the existing OTMS or sell their stock into the food chain.”
This would be helpful, he said, as there tended to be a glut of OTM cattle up for slaughter in the autumn.
Export restrictions could be lifted by the New Year, said Sinclair. “The end to the scheme will act as a trigger for the EU to draft legislation and proposals to end the export ban on UK beef.”
Rachael Porter
The FSA’s recommendation, made to the government on Monday, is the first sure step towards an end to the scheme and comes eight months after ministers first announced that a managed transition to BSE testing would take place.
“We are now waiting for government ministers to accept and implement the FSA’s recommendations,” said MLC economic manager for beef Duncan Sinclair. “This should
take around a month, with implementation taking another month. So OTM beef could re-enter the food chain as soon as mid-October.”
Rob Newbery from the NFU’s food chain policy unit said the switch to the new testing programme and away from the OTMS would begin a little later, in late October.
“The timetable is as we hoped it would be. The FSA has said ‘yes, we recommend a switch to testing and end to the OTMS’. Now we have to wait and hope that the Secretary of State for Health, Patricia Hewitt, accepts its recommendations.”
Sinclair warned that, whatever the outcome, the OTMS would not end overnight. “There will be a transitional period, until at least mid-December, where producers can opt to either enter their cattle into the existing OTMS or sell their stock into the food chain.”
This would be helpful, he said, as there tended to be a glut of OTM cattle up for slaughter in the autumn.
Export restrictions could be lifted by the New Year, said Sinclair. “The end to the scheme will act as a trigger for the EU to draft legislation and proposals to end the export ban on UK beef.”
Rachael Porter
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