New shock for suckler farmers

By Des Maguire and Paul Mooney

MAJOR threats to the vital autumn weanling trade to the continent are looming.

New EU rules due to come into effect this day week (July 1) will effectively require that cattle for export must have been resident on the "farms of origin" for at least 30 days.

This means that those dealers who buy cattle at marts and sustain the weanling trade will have to keep these cattle for 30 days on their own farms and also re-test them, so that they can prove that the export tests were carried out on the farms of origin.

Many dealers will be unwilling to do this because of the extra expense involved and for fear of being locked up as a result of buying in infection.

This will force more suckler farmers to try and sell their weanlings directly off their farms to dealers and shippers. However the new rules will require farmers selling directly to dealer/exporters to have a 30-day pre-movement test carried out on their own farms prior to export.

Marts will lose heavily under the new arrangements. Even weanlings sold at marts with an export test will require further testing.

The news comes as the new Spanish SRM rules on beef imports begin to affect the weanling trade here. Demand for weanlings has slowed up in recent weeks and only calves have been shipped over the past fortnight.

Following last year's substantially increased weanling exports to the continent it was being predicted earlier this year that 1999 exports could exceed 200,000.

It emerged this week that the new EU regulations were published almost a year ago in the Official EU Journal as an amendment to the Health Certificate for live cattle exports to the EU. However the Department of Agriculture did not inform exporters or farm organisations about the implications of the new rules until this week.

The chairman of the IFA's animal health committee Liam Egan said this week that he found the Department's attitude "astonishing and bizarre". "It's almost unbelievable," he said. "They have known about this regulation since it appeared as a footnote to the Animal Health Certificate in the EU's Journal on July 15, 1998 and haven't bothered to tell anybody about it until this week when it's upon us."

The Co. Offaly farmer described the new requirement as a "pre-movement test" through the backdoor.

"It is unacceptable that the Department should be trying to impose a pre-movement test without consultation. They have not discussed the new requirement with us at all.," he said.

The IFA has sought an urgent meeting with senior Department officials to try and work out more practical arrangements for the autumn export trade.