UK government needs to heed the foot and mouth wake-up call
Our latest press release highlights the confusion in the media surrounding weaknesses in the UK’s biosecurity at borders. We make the distinction between legal commercial shipments of meat which the Border Target Operating Model is there to manage and which are all pre-notified with full export health certification, and the illegal meat being brought in to the UK in smaller vehicles that can only be detected via a system of intelligence and spot checks at the ports.
We look at what should have been done but wasn't on the day the foot and mouth case in Germany was discovered. And we also look at how the current paper-based system used to track animals moving between farms and through livestock auctions is completely inadequate in stopping the spread of a notifiable disease should a case be discovered in the UK. We already have a real-time traceability system that should be mandatory but still isn't, and we need government to fix that.