A BEEF quality assurance scheme that will guarantee the traceability of all Irish beef products has been announced by the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Yates. The scheme, be predicted yesterday, would be the most stringent within the EU in terms of food safety, and was set to restore consumer confidence in Irish beef both at home and abroad.
It is to be phased in over 11 months at an initial cost of about £14 million and requires that all farmers, marts, meat processors and feed compounders be registered. Each part of the supply chain, including cattle dealers and hauliers, face mandatory registration to ensure that at any point in animal's lifetime its full history will be accessible from a central computer.
The scheme places particular onus on farmers, who will be required to sign a declaration to observe strict farm standards on feeds, veterinary care and pollution control. Defaulters will be delisted, in effect debarred from beef farming. Farmers may be liable to on the spot inspections by both regulatory authorities and buyers from export countries and major supermarket chains throughout the EU.
Known as the National Beef Assurance Scheme (NBAS), "it represents a fresh and integrated approach to the key task of restoring consumer confidence in beef products following the effects of BSE", the Minister said. "Any body wishing to produce beef products for human consumption must be registered to do so and that means reaching the standards set out in the scheme."
The standards required would be "unprecedented within the EU" and while it would help to regain live trade markets in the Third World, most significantly it would propel Irish beef "into the premier league with European supermarket chains"; an appropriate development for the largest exporter of beef within the EU.
A central element of the scheme is a computerised movement monitoring system (CMMS) based in his Department which will provide a snapshot of cattle at every stage of their history: their current location, their movement and ownership records, disease status and other data. While the Department will finance its own initial capital costs, running costs will be borne by the industry.
Farmers should not see the scheme as more unnecessary bureaucracy, Mr Yates said, as they would be adopting a code of excellence that would ultimately add value to their product. Details of on farm certification have yet to be agreed. The Department would continue to validate meat processors, marts and compound feed manufacturers.
With the NBAS's statutory backing rogue operators would be delisted, but the form of penalties and prosecution had to be finalised. Marts and meat processors would be obliged to deal only with cattle from registered persons.
The animal feed obligations would also be considerable. Some 40 per cent of compounders were already listing their feed ingredients but he was concerned that some coops had yet to participate.
The system will require both buyers and sellers to notify the Department of cattle movements within three days of them taking place. This will be made as simple as possible through electronic back up with computers at marts and meat plants, facilitating the transfer of information into the CMMS in the Department.
Consumers and veterinary teams from major customers such as export countries or retail outlets will be able to access CMMS to verify all food safety concerns. The scheme initially will enable the complete tracing of a carcass of beef.
In time it was likely that a cut of meat - for example, a piece of steak - would be completely traceable back to the farm it came from by way of a computer bar code, Mr Yates confirmed.
