Scots: 'Beef up data'

The Scottish National Farmers Union has stepped up pressure on the Government to speed up the introduction of on-line cattle registration.

Vice-president George Lyon underlined their commitment to the project - seen as the only way to get the European Union to lift the beef export ban - at a meeting called to assess an electronic tagging trial in the Borders.

Lyon declared that the union, previously ambivalent towards the computerised system, now admits that the ban will not be lifted 'unless we replace our records with a computer database' - des- pite the absence of similar systems on the continent.

He added: 'A computer traceability system for cattle has to be part of the way forward out of this crisis for Scotland's beef industry.'

The union's support for the system is seen as crucial.

Earlier opposition to the idea was based on the fear that an existing established system in Ulster would enable farmers there to escape the ban before their Scottish counterparts and pinch the Scots' markets.

Agriculture Ministry experts are keeping their fingers crossed that biological research does not make the traceability system more complicated by proving the existence of maternal transmission of BSE.

This would require the system, to be run on a mainframe in Cumbria, to trace animals' lineage back even further than is now proposed.