Three difficulties in dealing with the crisis of mad cow disease

OA show ('918 '); last October, a new round of BSE crisis broke out in Europe The EU has worked hard to put forward a series of measures to eliminate people's "cow phobia" and prevent the further development of the crisis A few months later, the crisis has not been alleviated Instead, the European Union cattle industry is getting deeper and deeper in the crisis, and consumers are even more reluctant to pay attention to beef The EU agriculture ministers' meeting recently concluded that the economic and social pressure of the BSE crisis on the EU has reached a "state of emergency" At present, the EU is facing three major problems in the competition with BSE First of all, there are many difficulties in implementing bullfighting measures According to the relevant plans of the European Union, from January 1 this year, all cattle over 30 months of age will be tested for BSE This is because BSE has a incubation period Generally, only cattle over 30 months of age can be diagnosed for BSE In total, there are about 7 million such two-year-old cattle in European Union countries, which are hard to detect The European Commission estimates that only two million cattle could be tested this year As for the ban on animal bone meal as feed, the European Commission also acknowledged the difficulty of its implementation Some member states were not in favor of the decision, so it was impossible to guarantee that cattle farmers would not continue to use animal bone meal The European Commission expressed great dissatisfaction with the slow implementation of new measures by Member States Secondly, the economic burden is difficult to cope with In order to deal with the BSE crisis, the EU decided to use 1.2 billion euros to purchase slaughtered cattle, subsidize the loss of cattle farmers and detect BSE However, due to the continuous spread of BSE, the original budget has been unable to cope with the current crisis European Commission agriculture Commissioner Michael Fischler said that due to the sharp decline in beef consumption, serious export damage, and the increasing cases of mad cow disease, it is necessary to destroy sick cattle and a large number of cattle raised in the same column in order to restore consumer confidence He stressed that the EU needs 3 billion euros this year to deal with the crisis EU agriculture ministers met in Brussels on January 29, but failed to come up with a final solution to the economic burden Third, social pressure is increasing With the outbreak of BSE crisis, EU and member states are facing multiple social pressures On the one hand, consumers are increasingly dissatisfied, which has led to the resignation of government ministers in some member countries, forcing the government to take more stringent measures to control mad cow disease; on the other hand, cattle farmers have been hit by the shrinking market and suffered heavy losses, they strongly demand the EU and member governments to protect their interests In addition, farmers in the European Union are worried about the reduction of subsidies for them in order to cope with the BSE crisis On February 2, Belgian farmers put pressure on the European Union and the Belgian government to park 1200 tractors on the European highway, disrupting traffic to Germany, Luxembourg and France Analysts here believe that the pressure and impact of the BSE crisis on the EU economy and society may be further intensified, and the public's fear of BSE is difficult to eliminate for a while How to deal with the crisis has become the focus of European society UPM (author:)