11 September 2007

2 minute read

Europe

UFU President Kenneth Sharkey said; “We are pleased to see the UK return to a sense of normality and this should help with the process of restoring full trade with international markets”.

However Kenneth Sharkey said the UK’s import controls needed to be reviewed. He said; “The impact of foot and mouth on the economy has once again been demonstrated, but in our opinion the UK remains unnecessarily exposed to the risk of exotic disease outbreaks. More must be done to ensure illegal food imports do not jeopardize our animal or plant health status”.

The UFU cited the example of Australia where the Quarantine Service implements strict screening at ports and airports, including the use of sniffer dogs and x-ray machines, monitoring for the illegal importation of food or drink products.

Kenneth Sharkey said; “The agri-food industry is a very important part of our economy, but not enough is being done to ensure the industry is protected from the importation of disease. The front line of defence for exotic diseases is to ensure contaminated products aren’t allowed into the country in the first place. The ongoing acceptance of Brazilian beef, from a country where foot and mouth disease is endemic is another example of the way in which we continue to be exposed to a disease threat”.

Kenneth Sharkey also referred to Government proposals to share more of the cost of disease outbreaks with farmers; “We have seen the enormous cost incurred when a disease outbreak occurs. We can not accept an approach from Government which is asking farmers to share the cost of exotic disease outbreaks such as Foot and Mouth, when we feel that not enough is being done to prevent outbreaks from occurring in the first place”.

TheCattleSite News Desk