Cow passports may sound daft but they could rescue farming. REG LITTLE reports...

The idea of passports for cattle might seem to bear the stamp of a Beaujolais-swilling Brussels bureaucrat. But desperate livestock farmers in Oxfordshire are this week hoping a new bovine identity system could prove the passport to securing their futures.

The need to beef up controls over cattle movement has resulted from fears about the spread of mad cow disease to Europe.

Oxfordshire's beef and dairy farmers were called to a special teach-in at the National Farmers' Union regional headquarters in Eynsham to learn just what the new passports will entail.

The documents will carry details about each animal's date of birth, address and family - in fact, exactly the kind of facts you would expect to see in the passport of any human British citizen. Livestock farmers are hoping the passports will meet one of the key conditions to getting the ban lifted on the export of UK beef.

But farmers have only two weeks left to report all cattle movements on and off their farms to avoid prosecution. And they must now apply for passports, within 14 days of animals being tagged, to the British Cattle Movement Service in Cumbria.

Pamela Forbes, NFU senior adviser based in Eynsham, said: "These changes are quite dramatic. They involve a new centralised database to ensure that cattle can be traced reliably.

"They illustrate our commitment to implementing the highest standards of beef production in the world." A paper-based system of cattle passports was first introduced two years ago. But it is hoped the new computerised system will allow farmers to meet stringent time deadlines.

NFU regional director John Roach said: "While this is another burden on farmers, it will strengthen the UK's arguments that we have carried out in full the conditions to lift the beef ban."

The European ban put the livelihoods of hundreds of beef farmers at risk, wiping millions of pounds off the value of British cattle.

British farmers faced a further blow last week when government scientist Prof Jeff Almond warned that BSE may have spread to sheep, raising the spectre of an epidemic of "mad sheep disease".

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