United Kingdom-BSE Charges not ressolved.

UNITED KINGDOM-BSE CHARGES.

Livestock trade across the country faces serious disruption as a dispute between farmers, auctioneers and abattoirs over BSE testing fees escalates.

Auctioneers across Britain have come under pressure from processors to charge farmers the £7.50 fee for brain stem tests on cattle over 48 months.

The abattoirs want the payment deducted when farmers are paid for cattle sold, but auctioneers have refused to do so arguing it is not their money to deduct.

The problem began on 1 January when DEFRA decided to pass back the cost for the tests to industry. Despite meetings, it was never resolved who in the chain would pay the bill.

Cattle sales have been cancelled in the stand-off while abattoirs have boycotted some markets, leading to fears that insufficient beef is available.

West Wales auctioneers JJ Morris stopped a sale of 120 cattle scheduled on Wednesday (11 February) because it refused to bend to pressure from an abattoir.

Chris Dodds, Livestock Auctioneers Association executive secretary, said the situation was "massively serious".

He said abattoirs should adjust their bid price to reflect their increased costs and claimed some larger abattoirs had manipulated others to join them in the stand-off.

"I suspect abattoirs will be short of cow beef because they’ve not bought enough in the past couple of days," he added. "It could cause a lot of damage if contracts are not met."

The row has also split auctioneers, with the Ross-on-Wye Auction Centre footing the £7.50 bill itself.

Richard Williams, a director, said: "We’ve taken an individual stance and have decided to cover the cost ourselves until it is resolved. In Ross-on-Wye the competition is huge and there are not a lot of abattoirs.

"It would be disastrous for farmers if we ended up with only a few buyers because of this dispute."

Alistair Mackintosh, NFU livestock board chairman, said the NFU saw no reason why the charge should not be passed up the production chain.

"We’re happy to work with processors to find ways to reduce costs, we won’t get anything done by throwing rocks at each other," he said.

Richard Phelps, Southern Counties Fresh Foods’ managing director, said it was "unfortunate" DEFRA had passed the cost of the tests on to industry.

He said the processor had increased the price paid to farmers to cover some of the cost in the short term.

"We believe we are being fair and we want to show we are committed to farmers," he added. "It’s an industry-wide problem that we need to overcome."