Positive response to live exports

The industry-wide response to moves to restart live exports – exclusively reported in last week’s Farmers Guardian – has been so positive that organisers are forging ahead with plans to set the ball rolling.

Indications are that with Britain’s export ban likely to be lifted by the end of March, the first chartered ferry shipment of calves and sheep will be crossing the Channel in early April.

Given the confidence to go forward, the next stage will be to form a co-operative – it will be called the Anglo European Co-operative – and establish a board of directors which will be drawn from across the industry.

The National Farmers Union, the Farmers Union of Wales and the National Sheep Association will be invited to nominate a board member, as will livestock auctioneers, exporters and hauliers. There will also be a UK-wide regional structure.

Every dairy farmer and sheep producer across the country will be sent letters detailing just how the co-operative will operate and what the potential benefits are. Regional meetings will be staged, too, as and where requested.

Further talks have been held this week with Defra, which is said to be fully supportive of the project providing it operates to the highest welfare standards.

That is something the group has been eager to stress from the outset, with strict veterinary inspections being carried out and only the most modern livestock vehicles in Europe being used to transport stock.

Across the Channel, veal production units have also changed dramatically over the past 10 years, with a switch having been made to group housing in temperature controlled units linked to ultra modern slaughtering centres.

The efforts to restart shipments, in fact, have been drawing a very positive response on the Continent with veal producers there saying they want as many British calves as they can get – and providing the quality is good are prepared to pay well for them.

The total number of calves slaughtered for veal in Holland alone in 2004 was 1,360,000 – roughly half of them being imported from Germany and other European countries – and demand is increasing year on year.

Indications suggest that initially prices paid to UK dairy farmers for new born calves could be in the region of £50 a head, but in time that could rise in line with the level of quality and reduced shipment costs for greater volumes.

But whatever the price any return would be better than as little as 50p per head or killing Holstein bull calves at birth. Exports would certainly help keep up UK prices for sheep, too.

Though the trade would be legal, so far the project has not brought any response from animal welfare protestors.

“We are confident that once the co-operative is up and running farmers across the UK will support it,” said one of the organisers this week. “If they do not, then what hope is there for the future of the industry?”

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