NI beef export ban 'set to end'

Northern Ireland lost more than 2,000 cattle to BSE

The NI farming industry looks set to be freed from BSE export restrictions which have affected the beef sector for almost a decade.

A top veterinary and food safety committee is meeting in Brussels to consider lifting a ban which has cost NI tens of millions of pounds.

The brain disease claimed more than 2,000 cattle in Northern Ireland.

NI farmers hope that lifting the ban will let them recapture the market share which the industry has lost.

The epidemic was tailing off by the time the government announced the news in March 1996 that BSE was linked to new variant CJD in humans.

We thought we had made significant progress at different times and a lot of people put a lot of effort in to see their hopes dashed Campbell Tweed UFU president

BBC NI rural correspondent Martin Cassidy said: "The beef industry used to be one of NI's biggest export earners.

"But that was 10 years ago, before the BSE crisis and a ban on shipments to Europe and the rest of the world.

"Now, with the cattle brain disease epidemic tailing off and a new regime of testing to ensure that carcases are free of the deadly BSE prions, it looks as if Europe is once again prepared to open its markets to beef from Northern Ireland."

He warned that it was "not a done deal". However, he said, a majority of member states seemed willing to go along with the European Commission proposal.

Ulster Farmers' Union President Campbell Tweed said he felt more hopeful about the future for the beef industry.

"1996 was really the last year that the industry made money here and we badly need to return to profitability," he said.