THE National Beef Association (NBA) has published an open letter to Defra Minister of State, Daniel Zeichner, proposing the recently revealed Defra underspend of £358m should be used to support the UK’s struggling beef producers in England.

To arrest the alarming decline in beef cattle numbers in Britain and the resulting weakening of national food security, NBA CEO, Neil Shand urges the Minister to focus the underspent budget on two key areas of support.

The first is to match the successful system currently in place in Scotland paying livestock farmers a headage payment of £100 per year on mainland farms and £160 on the islands; the proposal is that in England to pay £100 on lowland farms and £160 on upland farms. The second is to fund a more dramatic and fundamental approach to the eradication of TB in the national herd by increasing the use of the latest testing technology to give earlier and more accurate warning of the presence of the disease.

In his letter to the Defra Minister, Neil Shand stresses the wider benefits of livestock production to the environment, soil health, and the management of Britain’s much-loved traditional countryside, in addition to the crucial part that livestock farming plays in the rural economy and the national food supply.”