Borders are closed or closing and bans are in force on the movement of meat and farm animals.
Governments and farmers alike are nervous, while consumers are losing confidence in meat products from European countries. With the world's attention focused on the safety of beef and other animal products, the question arises whether Hungary can offer a solution to the crisis with its unique and highly immune gray cow. Picturesquely featured with their distinctive wide curved horns on the pages of tourism magazines about the Hungarian Great Plain, these sturdy animals purportedly travelled with the original Magyar settlers across Asia to the Carpathian basin. Inhabitants of Hungary since the conquest, these animals have remained a strong, healthy breed, not prone to epidemics, like those running wild in Europe today. The BSE scandals first broke in the United Kingdom in the late 1990s when several people died from consuming beef from infected cows.