Britain's Agriculture Minister warned British farmers today that they face a tough fight to win back markets, as Stephen Beard reports from the Marketplace European desk. Three million cattle were destroyed, costing British taxpayers more than six-billion dollars. The European Union piled on the agony, banning Britain from exporting its beef anywhere in the world. And secondly, we did a lot of inspections in the United Kingdom and the results are now positive. So it is justified now to lift the ban.
British beef is now the most heavily monitored meat on the planet.
Every animal is tracked and fully documented. But beef eaters have been fed a diet of nothing but bad news about the British product. Many will remain skeptical. The UK government reckons that British farmers will be lucky if they ship 5,000 tons of beef to Europe over the next year, less than two percent of what they exported before the ban. In London, this is Stephen Beard for Marketplace.