Document Directory
Hogg backs food safety moves
Unilever to sell off chemicals business
Dalgety blames BSE for setback
Move to restore confidence after BSE
mad cow report 'biased'
It's all been downhill since we invented the plough
Government incompetence
Certified offal-free burgers
Viewpoint: The BSE crisis
Miscellany from S. Dealler
Hogg backs food safety moves
By David Brown, Agriculture Correspondent
Telegraph ... Tuesday 11 February 1997
The Government was right to reject the concept of an independent executive Food Safety Agency following the beef crisis, Douglas Hogg, the Agriculture Minister, said yesterday.
He said that an alternative plan for an independent food safety advisor, supported by a food safety council, would produce better safeguards because he or she would have a wider role to play. Opening IFE '97, the International Food Exhibition at Earls Court, Mr Hogg said he did not believe in the concept of an agency that would carry out policies and comment on them afterwards.
An agency is favoured by Labour and the Liberal Democrats. "It's a bit like saying to a minister, let's hear what mistakes you have made since the last general election," he said.
By contrast a safety council would advise ministers and be able to talk publicly about its work. Mr Hogg added: "It is essential that consumers have confidence in the quality and safety of the products they eat and drink.
"The appointment of an eminent and independent food safety advisor is an important step forward which has been widely welcomed. Whoever gets this job will not only advise ministers but will also speak publicly if he or she feels consumers are at risk."
UK Correspondent Note: The opposition Labour Party is tabling a vote to reduce Mr Hogg's salary. This is a traditional method of indicating no confidence in a minister.
Unilever to sell off chemicals business
by Sarah Cunningham
Times ... February 12 1997
Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods group, yesterday unveiled plans to sell its speciality chemicals business in a move that is expected to raise up to £5 billion. The money is likely to be spent on acquisitions in its core areas of food, toiletries and detergents.
The disposal announcement and better than expected full-year profits sent Unilever's shares soaring nearly 6 per cent, from £13.93 to £14.71 1/2.
Unilever wants to concentrate on margarines, tea, ice cream and some sauces and frozen foods. The cost of BSE to the business last year was put at about £40 million .
The group made a pre-tax profit of £2.66 billion in 1996, 15 per cent up on the previous year. The final dividend of 21.76p (22.35p) gives a full-year dividend of 32.05p (29.40p), an increase of 9 per cent. It is payable on May 23.
Dalgety blames BSE for setback
by Sarah Cunningham
Times ... February 11 1997
A decline of 30 per cent in cattle feed sales because of mad cow disease meant a sharp drop in profits at Dalgety in the first half, the food manufacturer revealed yesterday.
Richard Clothier, chief executive, said the £4 million fall in pre-tax profit in the six months to December 31 to £43 million resulted from a £6 million decline in cattle feed profits . The strength of sterling has also reduced overseas earnings in the first half, he said. Analysts trimmed their full-year forecasts by up to £10 million to £105 million to £110 million.
The company expects the second half to be "much improved" because of the continued improvements in petfoods, new capacity and new products in food ingredients, and the declining effects of BSE. Cattle food sales will be hit again in the second half, but with less dramatic effect than in the first half, Mr Clothier said.
Net debt has increased from £281 million to £305 million, giving a gearing ratio of 76 per cent. However, capital expenditure will fall as most of the group's main projects are completed, and gearing is set to stabilise by the year end.
Despite a fall in earnings per share, from 10.8p a year ago to 9.3p, the interim dividend is being maintained at 8.5p. It is payable on June 2.
Sales of cattle feed in the first half fell dramatically as a delay in the cattle culling programme introduced to tackle BSE resulted in excess milk production which in turn reduced demand for feed and created intense price competition. In petfoods, operating profit increased 8 per cent to £17.9 million as sales, taking exchange rate fluctuations into account, rose 1 per cent. Star of the show was Felix catfood which achieved a record market share of 27 per cent. Arthur's and Choosy recovered their losses in the previous year. Mr Clothier said that a promotional campaign by Mars for its Whiskas brand had pushed Felix into the number two spot briefly, but it had since regained its number one place.
Move to restore confidence after BSE
by Philip Webster and Michael Hornsby
Times ... January 30 1997
Hogg: Whitehall victory: New supremo to advise on food safety
A Food safety chief is to be appointed by the Government in an attempt to restore public confidence after the BSE crisis and other recent health scares.
He or she will be an eminent figure, independent of the Government but answerable directly to ministers. The new role will be similar to that of the Chief Medical Officer and the person chosen will head a new Food Safety Council of up to 15 independent scientists.
The decision to appoint a Food Safety Adviser will be announced today by Douglas Hogg and Stephen Dorrell ‚ but the idea was already being criticised last night. The opposition parties suggested that the proposal did not go far enough because the council would ultimately be answerable to ministers.
But government sources dismissed the complaints, saying that no one had accused the Chief Medical Officer of being a government lackey.
The Food Safety Adviser will be paid up to £100,000 a year and have his own secretariat, almost certainly in the Cabinet Office in Whitehall to emphasise their neutrality from any particular government department. He will co-ordinate the work of existing committees and advise particularly on safety, quality and labelling.
The food chief will be chosen as much for his or her ability to deal with the media as for scientific expertise. He or she will be encouraged to speak directly to the media and to appear on television or radio at short notice to give the public guidance or reassurance on food safety matters.
He will also give an annual report to Parliament and be expected to appear before Commons select committees.
According to a government insider, the supremo will act on his own initiative and will not be bound by any rules of secrecy. The adviser and the council would come under the aegis of government because ultimately ministers had to take responsibility. But ‚ as with the chief medical officer, who often appears on television and radio ‚ the public would feel it was getting a message from an expert rather than the government line.
Ministers declined to speculate on who might be appointed to the new job, but it was said that they would be seeking someone like Professor John Pattison, chairman of the committee that advises the Government on "mad cow" disease.
Successive agriculture ministers have resisted pressure for the creation of an independent food safety watchdog ‚ partly because of opposition from farmers who feared bureaucratic interference. But the "mad cow" disease crisis last year, coupled with worries about salmonella in eggs, baby milk powder and E-Coli food poisoning, convinced the Government that more had to be done to restore public confidence.
Consumer groups have long accused the Ministry of Agriculture of putting food producers' interests above those of the consumer and of failing to act sufficiently quickly when presented with evidence of public health risks. Labour has repeatedly called for an independent food council and the National Farmers' Union has recently come out in favour of such a body.
Ian Gardiner, the NFU's policy director, said last night: "We do not see anything particularly wrong with the existing machinery of advisory committees, except that they have clearly lost public confidence ‚ largely because of their lack of openness.
"Any new body that is set up must have genuine autonomy and independence, and must be able to make public all the advice it gives the Government. It must also be free to give advice whenever it feels appropriate without waiting to be asked to do so by the Government."
Paul Tyler, the Liberal Democrat agriculture spokesman, said that "any tinkering with the personnel advising ministers would do nothing to reverse the decline in public confidence over the way we look after people's health".
Today's announcement will mark a victory for Mr Hogg, who first put forward his idea in the summer but faced strong objections from vested interests who have opposed the arrival of outside experts. However, the Prime Minister examined the plan over Christmas and his backing proved crucial.
Most other European countries join Britain in entrusting the monitoring and enforcement of food safety to their health and agriculture ministries, with much the same results in terms of low consumer confidence ‚ as shown by the panic and confusion in Germany over BSE.
No European country has anything comparable to America's Food and Drug Administration, an independent regulatory agency with powers to set safety standards and investigate risks to public health. But it seems clear that the Government is not envisaging anything as far-reaching as this.
Comment from UK Correspondent : There is a clear public perception that the Chief Medical Officer and scientists funded by MAFF ar indeed "Government Puppets". The CJD Monitoring Unit is still suppressing the number of suspected CJD cases (60 out of 110 suspected cases are thought to be CJD2) and the only independent scientific evidence has come from Professor Collinge, who is independently funded.
Mad cow report 'biased'
David Brown
Telegraph ... Monday 10 February 1997
The German Euro MP who is leading the attack in the European parliament on the Government's handling of the beef crisis has been accused of producing a biased and inaccurate report.
Sir Stephen Wall, head of the United Kingdom's Permanent Representation in Brussels and the senior Foreign Office civil servant there, has written to Reimer Boge, chairman of the parliament's committee of inquiry into mad cow disease and the beef crisis. Sir Stephen criticises the committee for demanding tougher controls in Britain than in other EU countries, even though the incidence of the disease is falling here and rising in other member states.
Sir Stephen says that Mr Boge's committee has failed to take account of the fact that Britain has spent £60 million on BSE controls since 1986 or to recognise the "ground-breaking" research into the disease by British scientists. He says the report also fails to recognise the emergency measures taken by the Government since 1986.
It's all been downhill since we invented the plough
Stuart Wavell
Sunday Times ... February 09 1997
The onset of farming is often held up as the key turning point in mankind's ascent. Without the plough there would be no towns, cities or glorious flowering of man's creative genius. But an alternative scenario of alarming import is unreeling from recent evidence: hunter-gatherers never wanted to farm.
Agriculture went so much against the grain for our ancestors that it was sometimes jettisoned for a return to the mobile lifestyle they loved, according to Dr Peter Rowley-Conwy, a reader in archeology at Durham University. Agriculture was forced on hunters by sharp climatic changes which threatened their wild stocks, he writes in the current issue of British Archaeology.
Among the most obdurate groups were sophisticated European hunters who, although surrounded by new-fangled agriculturalists, held out for more than 1,000 years.
This poses the intriguing question of what life would be like today if agriculture had never existed. Would we be happier? Women almost certainly would, claims Dr Christopher Meiklejohn, of Winnipeg University's department of anthropology. "There is evidence to suggest that women lost most of their political power and that their condition went sharply downhill with agriculture," he says.
In general, we work harder than our hunter forebears. Among the !Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari, once regarded as the classic model for hunting societies, one day of "gathering" provided three days' food, leaving plenty of time for visiting, entertaining and needlework. Hunters went out for only 19 hours a week on average, and if the hunt failed, there was an abundance of mongongo nuts, providing each person with the protein equivalent of 1lb of meat a day.
Experts agree that many of our problems derive from the stresses of urban life impacting on sensibilities formed by the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of 10,000 years ago. Road rage, claustrophobia and crime are cited as penalties for the African hominid who was designed to live among 100 acquaintances at most, not millions of strangers.
But Dr Steven Mithen, lecturer in archeology at Reading University and author of The Prehistory of the Mind, argues that our minds are as much a product of the agri-industrial experience as our evolutionary history. He admits, however, that our hunting legacy could thwart the best-laid plans of Bill Gates, the Microsoft guru.
"Home working has simply not caught on, because we have evolved as social creatures and need daily interaction with other individuals. Some of us don't think the Internet will make revolutionary change, because we are mentally adapted to handling objects, not digital information," says Mithen.
We differ visibly from Europe's last hunter-gatherers in only one regard: hunters were hairier and needed goose pimples. When our ancestors got cold, goose pimples made their body hair stand on end and trap a layer of warm air against the skin. We just shiver.
Otherwise, a Stone Age hunter's infant would instantly adapt if transported to a modern household. But could we ever go back?
"I'm not sure we ever went forward," says Dr Conrad Gorinsky, creator of the Foundation for Ethnobiology. "Civilisations are the footprints of catastrophe. Every one collapsed once it exceeded its biological support base. That is essentially what we are now engineering with the narrow intensification of agriculture. We still don't know what we are fighting with BSE ."
If agriculture had never existed, we would still be living in small bands, much as the Neanderthals did for millenniums. Our mobile lifestyle, and the need to carry children, would impose low population densities. But the inordinately large space required for hunting would create pressures. This situation appears to have arisen among Europe's last Mesolithic hunters, says Mithen. "If you look at their cemeteries you can see quite a few individuals who have got arrows in their backs. A lot of people believe this was a group fighting among each other, which is a reflection of the pressures that were gradually building up."
Plus Áa change. Or does it? The myths of the Ituri pygmies of Zaire tell of cataclysmic disasters that befell the world's teeming populations in the past. The pygmies claim they only survived by renouncing technology and returning to the simple life. Any takers?
By David Brown, Agriculture Editor
Telegraph ... Thursday 6 February 1997
The Government's attitude to Europe has hindered efforts to lift the EU export ban on beef, farmers' leaders said in London yesterday.
Sir David Naish, president of the National Farmers' Union of England and Wales, said whichever party won the election would have to play a full part in talks over European farm policy and economic reforms. He said: "British farmers need a Government that, when necessary, plays it tough in Europe, but whom our partners respect and accept is committed to a future in Europe."
Sir David led criticism at the NFU's annual conference over the handling of the beef crisis. He and several speakers attacked the delay in implementing measures agreed by the Prime Minister at the Florence summit last year to help end the ban. In particular, he hit out at the hold-ups in selective culling of extra cattle and losses suffered by farmers.
Douglas Hogg, Minister of Agriculture, received only an eight-second ovation after announcing extra aid to boost beef consumption. He told farmers that he was not confident about an early lifting of the EU ban on British beef.
He said that while Franz Fischler, the farm commissioner, was doing all he could to resolve the issue, other member-states, which were having difficulties sustaining beef sales in their home markets, would be harder to convince. He said the Government would spend £2.5 million to help the Meat and Livestock Commission and its equivalent body in Northern Ireland to restore sales.
Mr Hogg also announced an extra £2.6 million in "greener farming" subsidies during the next three years in five Environmentally Sensitive Areas - the Broads, the Pennine Dales, the Somerset Levels and Moors, the South Downs and West Penwith in Cornwall.
The minister tried to bolster support for the Tories by pointing out that £3.3 billion had already been committed to BSE. This was equivalent to 2p on income tax. He posed the question: "Would Labour have provided this level of support? Most surely not."
It was Mr Hogg's 52nd birthday but there were few expressions of good wishes and no gifts from his hosts . The Duke of Westminster spoiled the party on Tuesday when, at the union's annual dinner, he described the Government's handling of the crisis as "incompetence on a mind-blowing scale ".
And as Mr Hogg arrived at the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, animal rights campaigners met him to complain about £100 subsidies for the killing of days-old calves which can no longer be exported for veal production in Europe due to the ban.
ï Sir David was re-elected president of the NFU yesterday. Ben Gill and Tony Pexton, the joint deputy presidents, were also re-elected.
Beef aims to put its mark on burgers
by Robin Young
Times ... January 31 1997
THE minced beef quality mark introduced last June has led to an increase in sales of more than a third, British Meat said yesterday. The quality standard mark scheme is now being extended to beefburgers .
Burgers carrying the mark are certified offal-free and made in Britain using only regular cuts from prime cattle less than 30 months old. Most major retailers display the beefburger mark on their packs and about 6,000 independent retailers are joining the scheme.
Advertised promotions include:
Asda: pork belly £2.18 per kg, joints and steaks £3.99 per kg, broccoli 49p a lb, minneolas £1.49 for 1.25kg, blueberries 99p for 125g.
Budgens: minced steak £1.72 per lb, cheese and onion 6 in quiche 84p, large oranges 89p for five.
Co-op (CWS): frozen thick pork and beef sausages £2.09 for 24, frozen mixed peppers 44p for 454g.
Harrods: Thai red curry fish cakes 99p for two, honey-glazed poussins £3.59 each, ten kiwi fruits £1.
Iceland: jumbo turkey kievs £1.79 for two, fish and chips for two £1.49, sticky toffee cheesecake £1.49 for 400g.
Kwik Save: Oxo gravy granules 79p for 170/200g, Old Oak hot dogs 39p for 400g, Chivers Tang marmalade 49 for 340g.
Marks & Spencer: low fat sweet and sour chicken £2.39, lite cauliflower cheese £1.19, Canadian honey £1.29.
Morrisons: topside joints £4.38 per kg, pork loin steak £3.72 per kg, carrots 13p a lb.
Safeway: boneless beef rib £4.59 per kg, salmon en croute £1.99 for 400g, baking potatoes 86p for 2.5kg, red plums 99p a lb.
Sainsbury's: boneless chicken breast £4.25 for 575g, Canadian brie £5.49 for 454g.
Somerfield: rolled pork shoulder roast £2.18 a kg, avocados 29p.
Tesco: beef topside joints £5.29 a kg, lamb half shoulder £3.69 a kg, broccoli 49p a lb.
Waitrose: poussin £2.39 for 800g, four rambutans £1.29.
Viewpoint: The BSE crisis
RW Lacey. University of Leeds, UK
British Food Journal. ... 1996;98:3-4
A short editorial explaining why misleading information was put out by the official channels (and possibly believed by them) concerning the risk to the population of BSE. It explains some factors on how odd statistics were derived by MAFF, e.g., it is now known that one farm in Yorkshire collected 915 cases of BSE but only had 100 milking cattle itself. The way this was done was to import cattle from other farms with BSE and then claim the compensation from MAFF.
In this way the apparent prevalence rate of BSE in farms remained relatively low in that area. Lacey discusses the results from the vertical transmission study and suggests that the 13 cases in cattle that were not the offspring of infected mothers may well be due to endemic transmission and that this should not be ruled out at this time. He explains that it is unacceptable to assume that infection would be confined to the organs that were banned in the UK and that it is still unacceptable to predict the scale of CJD derived from BSE.
Miscellany
from Steve Deallers site
Various Sources ... January 1997
Independent 15.1.96
Britain 'conspired with Europe' on BSE crisis. The report of the European Parliament Committee on BSE enraged Mr. Hogg (and the Tories) for not accepting their action as adequate and enraged the EC with its report suggesting that the EC conspired to 'fuel' the beef crisis.
Reimer Boege, the German head of the committee, said UK should be taken to court for failing to asssist with his committee's investigation. Mr Hogg had refused to give evidence and should face charges before the European Court of Justice. Hogg denied that the committee had any rights to demand his attendence. The report uses the words "negligent", "biased", "Britain put pressure on the EC not to inspect abattoirs", "packing EU veterinary committees with British officials in order to push the British case", "EC tried to follow a policy of down-playing the problem...disinformation."
It was revealed last night that 36 million burgers sausages, pies, lasagnes are to be buried underground in landfill sites as a result of the BSE crisis. More than 150,000 cattle will also be disposed of in the same way, according tothe board which is daling with the problem. A House of Commons Environment Select Committee member said the only really safe method was incineration.
Financial Times 10.1.97
Tories campaign against information Act It seems that a freedom of information act is being stopped by Tory groups and the current problems are that the cost of providing information would be very high. MAFF refused to supply information to an engineer that was trying to find out why the machinery used by the rendering companies did not manage to carry out its job adequately. He was told that he would have to pay 1293 pounds for the information and possibly 5200 pounds for legal advice (as MAFF would need to find out if they were legally permitted to give out the data). The Campaign for the Freedom of Information said that this prevented information from being supplied and permitted Government groups to charge high prices.
Guardian 10.1.97
Euro report alleges BSE 'blackmail' The UK Government is accused of negligence in its handling of the BSE epidemic in cattle and of attempting to blackmail the EU in an outspoken report by the cross party committee of MEPs. It identifies Britain as "the main subject on which most of the responsibility lies" and alleges that the Government's attempt to force a lifting of the beef export bab last summer by refusing to co-operate in EU business was an "abuse of its rights and blackmailing of community institutions". (Medina Ortega, who produced the draft report, from Spain has admitted that the report is likely to be modified - Ed).
The report says "The problem does not reside in the lack of appropriate legislative measures, but in the attitude of the Government, which has not guaranteed their correct application or carried out the necessary checks." The Government hopes the report will be watered down by the full committee later.
Independent 9.1.97
New civil service codes have been drawn up demanding that information released by them under the 'Open Government' regulations would have to be paid for at high price.
Farmers Guardian 3.1.97
Who pays BSE bill - industry or taxpayer? This simply shows that all the extra costs that are not being covered by Government subsidies are simply being handed down to the person buying the meat... and when they are UK meat ends up more expensive than foreign equivalents. What ever happens the rendering industry appears to have done well. It explains that various strategies are needed to keep the market going.
Farmers Guardian 3.1.97
Call for cohort slaughter choice. Milk producers affected by the selective cull should be given a choice of having cohorts slaughtered before or after April 1, 1997 depending on their milk quota situation, says the National Cattle Association and Royal Assn of British Dairy Farmers.
Farmers Guardian 3.1.97
Feed mites research Central Science Labs in York (MAFF) have put in a proposal to the MAFF seeking funding to look at whether feed storage mites can carry prions.
European Parliament committee report on BSE stands firm.
It seems that the final edition of the report is likely to be just as damning as the one that came out half way through January. A particular member of the committee that spoke to me was quite open about how annoyed they were about the position of the UK Government and felt that this should be made clear. (After talking to the EP people I can hardly describe to you just how poor the image of the MAFF is now in Europe. For a British institution that was once looked on as being excellent it now seems thoroughly tarnished and will have to start again from nothing - Ed).
European Parliament report.
Initially it was claimed that the draft report put out by Manuel Medina Ortega (you may be able to find this elsewhere on the Internet) was over aggressive and that the true report expected in February would not be so sinister. It is now said that this may not be true and that this is effectively the 'true' report aimed at making an effect and a later report may also be fairly damning of EC and UK Government action.
Research funding.
UK funding is supposed to be going up by a further 17million in BSE/CJD research over the next 3 years. The depressing thing is that the money may be going to the research groups that have failed already and are involved in giving reviews of their mates research proposals. It is still well below the demands made by the Spongiform Encephalopathy Research Campaign but it is a large increase.
Meat and Livestock Commission.
It appears that the MLC spent a lot of time and money last year investigating why people didn't like the idea of eating beef. The findings were simply that people in middle life and younger ones were particularly against the idea of eating it and that schools were banning beef in large numbers. What is particularly worrying is that specific people were being asked by MLC to go to schools and give lectures telling them that all was OK and that they should not worry. It now seems that these people were from official sources and should not have been associated with the MLC at all; they should have been independent. The MLC admits in their internal documents that MAFF has lost its credibility and that scientists are the only source that MLC can use to bring people back to eating beef. However, the finding that they were to use independent scientists that were supposed not to be on anyone's side in this has now appeared.
Meat and Livestock Commission.
The internal memo from the MLC indicates just how they were expecting to orchestrate action in manipulating the information that was being given to children about meat. Presumably MLC was only going to tell the truth but the document discusses the "preparation of consumer-friendly information based on MAFF's lengthy assurance documents to ensure that communications to the schools are professional, easy to read and very user-friendly". The document itself is very worrying to anyone that would normally accept information from apparently official sources; basically because it suggests that even official information can be manipulated by a biased group such as the MLC.