A WARNING of a dramatic slump in domestic beef production was issued by the National Beef Association this week.

Hundreds of thousands of beef animals were on the wrong farms, it said, and unless a sensible system was quickly established for moving them to the right holdings, without jeopardising foot-and-mouth security, the slump would occur over 2002-2003.

The NBA believes that about m store cattle are still held up on breeding farms and about 250,000 dairy beef animals are trapped on rearing units.

There was an urgent need for a national strategy in which cattle, which are infinitely less likely to carry foot-and-mouth than sheep, could be safely moved to suitable finishing units, and adequate slaughter cattle numbers secured for the next two years.

According to the NBA, a vast proportion of last year's suckled calf crop is stranded on farms where there is not enough feed to maintain growth rates and, unless huge numbers of overgrown and underfed dairy calves can move into finishing units quickly, a substantial number of animals will have to be dumped in the welfare scheme instead.

"We would like MAFF to work out an urgent masterplan in which security against foot-and-mouth is retained but the beef industry is not strangled," said Mr Robert Forster, chief executive.

The NBA thinks one key is the establishment of cattle-only movement systems which acknowledge cattle are less likely to spread the disease than sheep.

An effort must also be made to identify farms within designated foot-and-mouth zones which carried the least risk and to give priority to those under most accommodation and feed pressure to move their stock to holdings which wanted them