Northern Ireland Is Counting
On Traceback To Lift Beef Ban

By Colleen Schreiber

HOUSTON — The importance of having a traceback system in the beef industry was driven home by one of those who knows best from past experience. Derek Shaw, of Shaw Farms Limited in Northern Ireland, provided an overview of the current "mad cow" crisis affecting Britain and in particular his homeland of Northern Ireland at the recent International Livestock Congress here.

Last month the European Commission recognized that Northern Ireland had the only acceptable means of protecting consumers against "mad cow," more properly known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. That decision, Shaw told listeners, was the first step in lifting Europe’s ban on beef from his country.

"Traceback has opened that door for us," he said, "and traceback and nothing else will keep it open."

Traceback systems, he predicted, will become essential in the future to sell premium-priced beef in the European and Japanese markets.

"We now understand that traceback protects markets."

Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, has a population of 1.5 million and a working population of about 600,000. The whole of Ireland kills approximately two million cattle per year, while Northern Ireland kills about half a million, Shaw said.

The BSE crisis effectively began on March 20, 1996. It was on that day that the British Health Minister and the British Agriculture Minister told the House of Commons that scientists had confirmed the possibility of a link between BSE and the fatal human condition known as Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease or CJD. The media had a heyday.

They played up those who had died of CJD and emphasized that the occurrence of the disease was strongly linked to the consumption of meat or meat products, Shaw told listeners. Not surprisingly, beef consumption collapsed overnight.

"When the European Union imposed a world ban on the export of British beef and British exports dropped to zero, beef producers were staring ruin in the face."

Prior to March 20, beef had been selling for $3.90 per kilo dead weight. That very quickly dropped to $2.90 per kilo, a reduction in the value of the finished animal of up to $330 per head, Shaw said.

Despite only having 2.8 percent of the human population of the UK, Northern Ireland contributed some 28 percent of total beef exports. Needless to say, when the ban was imposed and the government ordered the culling of all beef cattle over 30 months of age because that group was deemed to be most at risk from BSE, Northern Ireland was devastated.

"As beef exports fell to virtually nothing overnight, our industry began to incur losses of over $2 million per week," Shaw said. "This not only affected the beef producer, it affected all of agriculture."

Shaw pointed out that despite the media hype, the real incidence of BSE was really insignificant.

"Even at its peak in 1993, the incidence of BSE was less than a tenth of one percent of the total kill rate, and the proportion of cumulative BSE cases in Northern Ireland between 1988 an 1995 was one percent of the UK total," Shaw said.

"It’s a disease that is not only under control, but virtually eliminated. Unfortunately, persuading the media has been a lot more difficult. The perception remains that all UK beef is dangerous."

The banning of beef on the bone by the British government on December 3 was a further insult. Their reasoning was that contracting CJD from a T-bone steak was theoretically possible, he told listeners. Shaw cited statistics, however, that showed just how slight that chance was.

"The chance of a person dying in any one year in a road accident is one in 8000," Shaw remarked. "The chance of dying in a plane crash is one in 20,000. The chance of being struck by lightning is one in 10 million, and the chance of contracting CJD by eating beef on the bone is one in 600 million," he stressed. "There is no indication, however, that the British government or the European Union intends to ban air travel."

Northern Ireland, Shaw said, recognized long before the BSE crisis the need to adopt a traceback system, and in fact their unique system has been in place and has been used for a number of years.

The system started 10 years ago as a way of tracing movement of an animal — where it had come from and where it was going. Its main purpose was as a means of making general health checks on animals and of disease control.

Ireland also discovered at that time that there was a premium to be paid for quality-assured beef which was proven to be chemically clean. Using their traceback system, they were able to isolate cattle with even the slightest suspicion of additives. Before March 1996, Shaw said, traceback guaranteed that premium market and their reputation.

The current traceback system records all cattle movement, disease testing history and quality assurance records.

"Apart from movement permission, the real issues here are health status, movement history and whether the animal has ever had contact with a herd where BSE had been reported," Shaw told listeners.

Each animal is given a unique eartag identification number. Entering this number into the computer produces a full history for a particular herd or for an individual animal within that herd. It gives the breed, color, sex, date of birth, disease status, including contact with BSE, farm quality assurance status, and entire movement records.

The eartag is relatively simple. The first number is the producer’s unique herd number, the second is the animal’s number and the last number is a computer check digit. The computer can only allocate the herd and animal number once, and the numbers are assigned by the veterinary service. Tagging must occur within 30 days of birth. A second tag is used for safety purposes. The tags stay in place until the veterinary service physically identifies them when they arrive at the slaughterhouse.

Last month the EC banned beef from any animal in contact with a BSE herd within the last eight years. Traceback, Shaw said, can deliver this information instantly, because when a case of BSE is confirmed in a herd, that herd number is flagged BSE-positive on the computer records. Additionally, all cattle that had been in that herd in the previous six years are automatically flagged.

There are no exceptions, he said. Any animal entering from England, Scotland or Wales is automatically flagged for BSE, and that flag remains against the individual animal for the duration of its life.

As it exists today, Ireland’s traceback system has a capacity about equal to the current live cattle population in Northern Ireland and it can cope with several million moves. A new version is expected to be launched in September. Live cattle population capacity will be infinite and the system will record movement from birth to plate. In addition to the current information, it will also provide carcass information from the packing and retail sectors.

Additionally, the new version will be compatible for sheep and pigs. It’s estimated that the system hardware and software will cost about $4 million, Shaw said.

The speaker told listeners that Northern Ireland’s traceback system only works because the industry and the government want it to work.

"It takes the government to enforce it," he said. "This is a partnership for increased profits. If we make profits from exporting guaranteed beef, the government makes a profit from increased economic activity."

Though the ban is still in place, Shaw reiterated that Northern Ireland is the only one moving toward lifting that ban. Their system has passed all the technical tests and all the veterinary tests, and it’s gone through all the committees, but still there are a few more hurdles.

"The future for beef markets, at least in Europe, will never be the same," Shaw said. "Customers, whether retailers or consumers, want to know the history of the meat they intend to put on the plate. Not only will they demand pure, natural, healthy beef, they will expect proof that it is just that.

"The world is changing," he concluded, "and we in Europe have learned the hard way that there can never be any compromise on quality."