Bid to create strong domestic calf market.

Byline: By Anna Lognonne

Farming groups are working alongside animal welfare charities and UK supermarkets to create a strong domestic market for UK calves to prevent so many from being exported abroad.

Although the two sides are working from different areas ( the animal welfare groups want to see an end to exports while the farming groups want to see more UK calves being reared for the UK market ( they share a similar vision.

For years, tens of thousands of dairy calves have been destroyed at birth because farmers couldn't afford to rear them and now that the export market has reopened many are being exported to be reared for veal.

Although veal crates were banned throughout the EU in January this year, many of the systems to which the calves travel would be illegal in the UK.

The Beyond Calf Exports Stakeholders Forum is now seeking to find realistic and economically viable alternatives that will benefit the UK beef industry, calf breeders and also calf welfare.

The forum, set up following an initiative by Compassion in World Farming and the RSPCA, is also reviewing dairy cow breeding. As well as improving both welfare and commercial management to give a more solid economic base for dairy farming, the aim is to develop a better type of calf for the beef sector

Three working groups have been established by the forum. One, chaired by Robert Forster, chief executive of the National Beef Association, is examining market opportunities for black and white bull beef; another, chaired by Mary Mead of the British Friesian Breeders Club, is looking at overcoming the barriers to the development of the more sustainable cow; the third, chaired by Professor John Webster, is considering the animal welfare implications of the various options.

Mr Forster, from the NBA said: "We are not anti export. The reopening of the export market has raised the value of an export calf to about pounds 60, the highest since 1996.

"However, we want to encourage self-sufficiency by ensuring as many black and white bull calves as possible are reared and made available to the UK beef industry, which is still importing up to 300,000 tonnes of beef a year. We seek to make more breeders, rearers, processors and retailers aware of the advantages of drawing more of these calves into the UK's beef systems and of allowing them to make a direct contribution to increases in UK farm income and more work for the UK economy.

"This can be done by encouraging more dairy farmers to offer more calves to domestic buyers and making it easier for domestically based calf rearers to compete with exporters.

"One of the most important ways we can do this is to increase the number of assembly markets, where calves are offered to sale to both export and domestic buyers.

Mrs Mead said that the poor fertility and lack of calvings in some of today's cows gives dairy farmers few opportunities to put cows to beef bulls, since their breeding policy is dominated by the need to breed replacement heifers. The working group chaired by Mrs Mead has agreed to focus on desirable genetic attributes rather than the advantages of one breed over another.

"Cross breeding would be the quickest way to produce a calf more suited to beef production but will only appeal to some," she said. In the end it is all about economics. Better prices for well graded finished cattle would lead to better prices for better quality calves and farmers would react accordingly."

Prof Webster, Emeritus professor of Animal Husbandry at the University of Bristol, said: "The resumption of the export trade has restored a market for Holstein-Friesian bull calves, but one that may perpetuate rearing practices that are incompatible with our responsibility to provide a reasonable quality of life for these sentient animals."

Organisations and groups taking part in the forum include Beef Production Systems Ltd, Blade Farming, British Friesian Breeders Club, British Cattle Veterinary Association, Centre for Dairy Information (CDI), Cattle Information Service (CIS), Cranfield University, Defra, Dovercote Park Ltd, English Beef and Lamb Executive (Eblex), Food Animal Initiative (FAI), Helen Browning Organics, Holstein UK, Milk Development Council, National Beef Association, National Dairy Farm Assured Scheme (NDFAS), National Farmers Union, National Farmers Union Scotland, Marks & Spencer, Organic Milk Suppliers Cooperative, Scottish Agricultural College, Soil Association, Southern Counties Fresh Foods, Tesco, Trading Standards Institute, Sainsbury's and Waitrose.