Скачать или смотреть FRANCE: FRENCH BAN ON BRITISH BEEF IMPORTS UPDATE

(23 Mar 1996) French/Nat

For French meat producers, the ban on British beef imports could be good for business as they try to fill the gap in the market with homegrown beef.

Even so, some farmers are worried the latest health scare could put people off eating meat altogether.

Rungis in Paris is Europe's largest wholesale market for fresh products.

Every morning the meat hall of the market is a hive of activity as carcasses arrive from around Europe for sale.

Usually about seven per cent of the beef sold here is British but France, like many other countries, has temporarily banned imports of British beef.

They were reacting to evidence that a rare human brain illness could be caused by British cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or "mad cow disease."

Following France's decision this week there have been very few deliveries from Britain to the market .

The buyers at Rungis were very cautious about the origin of the beef they intended to buy.

SOUNDBITE: (French)
"We look at the meat three times before we buy it to avoid to take any risk of buying beef coming from England. We can not afford taking the risk to infect the consumer. We don't want to take any risk."
SUPERCAPTION : Jean Barrat, Parisian meat buyer

This attitude is bad news for cattle farmers in Britain.

The French, who are big meat eaters, import about 110-thousand tons of British beef per year, making France Britain's top beef export market.

French beef producers say although there might be a short term shortage, they will easily be able to fill the gap in the market.

Even so, producers say prices could rise and consumers might have to pay more for their steaks.

But some French cattle farmers fear the ban will have the opposite effect on beef prices.

They are worried consumers will be unsure of where the beef comes from and stop eating it altogether.

Jean-Baptiste Soufflet, a cattle farmer near Noyon northeast of Paris, said he also feared an anti-meat "psychosis" could result from the ban.

SOUNDBITE: (French)
Beef is a product that is at the bottom of the market anyway, it's been like that for many years already, regularly each week production is going down, if you reduce the imports on the market and are supplementing imports which would have come in from England, it's going to have a beneficial effect on new production, it's going to put production up. But that means consumption has to remain steady.
SUPER CAPTION: Jean-Baptiste Soufflet, Cattle farmer

He said it was always risky when people get the idea that meat is bad for their health.

SOUNDBITE: (French)
If on the other hand, there remains doubt the consumers will stop buying. We've already had the problem with the boycott of veal over the hormone scare and it had disastrous consequences for the producers for years.
SUPER CAPTION: Jean-Baptiste Soufflet, Cattle farmer

He was referring to the health scare in the 1980s when people became concerned that meat from cows treated with artificial growth hormones was a health hazard.

The European Union outlawed such treatment and banned U-S beef imports, since use of growth hormones is widespread in the United States, although Washington claims growth hormones pose no health threat.

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