UK farmers forced to destroy ‘tens of thousands’ of dairy calves
Reports carried in the UK press last week said ‘tens of thousands’ of dairy calves are being shot and buried on farms, because foot and mouth and BSE restrictions had made them virtually worthless.
Richard Snow, the livestock director of one of the UK’s largest agricultural groups, Velcourt, said around 200,000 bull calves would have to be destroyed because they have no commercial value and it would cost the farmer to have them taken away.
The situation has arisen because foot and mouth disease restrictions and low market confidence had brought an end to exports to France, where ‘Bobbie calves’ of this kind are processed for veal. It is estimated that each calf would make a loss of £3 ($4.4) if it were raised for veal processing, hence the drastic action being taken.
In the same report Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association, called the situation ‘ironic’ as it had come about as a result of animal welfare concerns and British people not eating veal. Although it is possible to produce pink veal humanely, he said, hardly anybody bought it.
An EU (European Union) funded calf processing scheme, designed to rectify some of the imbalances in the market caused by BSE, had previously existed. This allowed calves to be sold to the meat industry but was closed down in 1999.
A spokesman for the Defra (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - the newly renamed Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food) described the situation as a ‘commercial issue’ saying that there was no successor to the EU scheme because the market ‘is not the same’ as it had been in the aftermath of the BSE.
Also last week, Defra announced a new system which it said would allow livestock to be moved during the autumn. Margaret Beckett, secretary of state at the Department of Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs, announced three categories of foot and mouth status for counties and districts, under which livestock movements must be either licensed, inspected or tested. In the meantime, tens of thousands of animals remain trapped on farms, unable to be moved.
