Volume 1: Findings and Conclusions
2. Setting the context
The cattle industry

119 At the time BSE emerged, beef and dairy farming was the largest sector of UK agriculture (see vol. 12: Livestock Farming). The output from milk, fattened cattle and calves totalled some £5 billion, nearly 38 per cent of the entire UK agricultural output. With a cattle population of some 12.7 million, the UK produced 97 per cent of the beef and veal required to supply the needs of the domestic market, and sufficient liquid milk to supply 100 per cent of domestic demand for milk and almost 70 per cent of domestic demand for butter and cheese.

120 This impressive degree of self-sufficiency was the result of the policies of successive governments which, in the period after the Second World War, had sought to increase domestic food production in order to reduce reliance on imported food and to foster rural communities. Incentives to increase production levels even further were provided in 1973, when the UK joined the European Economic Community. The possibility of increased exports to Member States, coupled with the support regimes of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), encouraged farmers to maximise their outputs, even if this led to surplus production.

121 The increase in output from the cattle industry was achieved in a number of ways. The most important of these was a combined breeding and feeding programme which produced cows with a genetic capability to give high milk yields if fed with high-protein feeds. Thus it became regular practice for farmers to supplement the forage-based diet of cattle with protein concentrates that they would buy from special animal feed manufacturers. The protein in these concentrates might come from animal sources in the form of meat and bone meal (MBM), bloodmeal, feather meal or fishmeal, or from non-animal sources, mainly in the form of soyabean meal.

122 Although soya-derived protein may seem the more 'natural' option to the layman, animal-derived protein produced as great or a greater increase in milk yield, and its use provided an outlet for animal waste that would otherwise have had to be disposed of in some other way. Small quantities of animal by-products had been used in animal feed since the beginning of the 20th century. Most farmers were well aware of the practice and had no problem with it.

123 Since the purpose of protein concentrates in feed was primarily to facilitate the high milk yield of dairy cows, these concentrates were used more in dairy herds than in beef herds. Dairy calves would have protein concentrates included in their feed from a week after birth, whereas calves used for beef production were unlikely to receive concentrates until they were at least 6 months old. However, since almost two-thirds of beef produced in the UK originated in dairy herds, we cannot conclude that the cattle whose flesh we were eating had been fed less protein concentrate than those whose milk we were drinking.