FARMERS demanded an urgent statement from the Government last night about what they should do with thousands of prime cattle which are ready to be slaughtered for meat and now have nowhere to go.
These animals, about a year old, are in addition to the many thousands of older cows and bulls which may be included in a new culling programme recommended by European Union vets.
Many of these younger animals are ready for the market now. If they are not killed within days they will pass their prime and become too fat for the market.
Nicholas Baker, a beef and dairy farmer at Bainton, near Driffield, East Yorks, said: "I have 160 beef animals due to be sold over the next two months.
"Some are ready now. Under normal circumstances they are worth £111,000, but £22,000 was wiped out when prices fell 20 per cent on Thursday - and prices are still falling."
It is costing him £450 a day to feed his beef herd in bought-in cereal-based rations because it is too early to put them out to grass and last year's drought left hay in short supply.
All his beef is raised to recognised quality-assured standards.
He said: "We are in the middle of calving now and we are looking after the calves, but you ask yourself why. There is nowhere for them to go at the moment.
"What farmers need now is a safety net. We have very little time. We cannot go for long soaking up losses."
One problem is that beef buyers, particularly Italian ones, like beef which has been reared on grain because the meat has whiter fat.
Beef fed on grass tends to have a yellow tinge which is deemed less attractive to the consumer, even though it is as wholesome.
If farmers stop feeding the expensive rations, they devalue the meat if and when it is sold.
Paul Temple, another farmer near Driffield who moved to a larger farm and invested an extra £40,000 last year, said: "We are in a market collapse and we have no emergency marketing programme whatsoever. Farmers are feeding expensive rations to animals which now have no value. Nobody can go on like this.
"Fortunately, we have potatoes and cereal crops to fall back on for a living. It's those poor farmers in the hills who depend mainly on store cattle for their living who I feel most sorry for."
Mr Temple said farmers suspected mad cow disease was more widespread on the Continent than had been admitted. In France, he claimed, cattle with BSE were being diagnosed as suffering from "magnesium staggers" which, like BSE at a certain stage, makes cattle unable to stand.
But he added: "Their staggers is different to our magnesium staggers. Usually fit-looking cows develop the illness quickly and keel over." The suspicion was that much of the "staggers" in France was in fact BSE.
Professor John Bourne, director of the Institute of Animal Health at Compton, Berks, said he had heard anecdotal reports of BSE in France before it was officially reported there.
However there was no direct evidence that the disease was widespread there.
Given that BSE has occurred in other European countries and given that other European countries had not implemented the same precautions taken in Britain to protect consumers, it could be argued that British beef was safer than foreign beef, he added.
