MORE than three million cattle may have to be slaughtered in Europe unless there is an upsurge in beef consumption in the EU the Minister for Agriculture warned yesterday.
"If consumption continues as it is, there are three options open to the EU Beef Management Committee," Mr Yates said.
"There will either have to be an argument put forward to GATT to allow extra subsidised exports of EU beef on world markets or have continuing EU intervention or there will have to be a slaughter out policy".
The Minister was addressing the World Congress of the Guild of Agricultural Journalists in Dublin Castle yesterday.
The British BSE crisis was not temporary and would become a watershed in EU beef production history, Mr Yates said.
Before the crisis Europe was 104 per cent self sufficient in beef but since then that figure has grown to 125 per cent, leaving one million tonnes of beef or three million animals without markets.
The Minister said Europe is going to have to find a market for these, if consumer confidence is not restored.
Support for Mr Yates's statements came at the conference from Prof Seamus Sheehy, of the department of agribusiness at UCD, who said there would be no easy options in a crisis which he predicted could last for two to three years.
He said the slaughter option would be bitterly opposed by animal welfare groups in Europe but it would have to be one of the options unless consumer confidence was restored.
Mr Yates criticised Britain's handling of the BSE crisis, which he said had created a hysterical consumer reaction all over the world.
"The British should have consulted other member states before the statements were made in the House of Commons on 20th March but I think they are now back on the right path," the Minister said.
He predicted that the EU ban imposed on British beef and beef extracts would probably be lifted gradually. He said it was likely that the ban on by products would first be removed and then, gradually the rest of the ban would go but he could not say when that would happen.
Opening the conference, which has the theme "Free Trade and the Family Farm", Mr Yates warned that if family farms in Europe were not protected in the context of the next round of, world trade talks, there would be massive unemployment in the agricultural sector.
"Imposing Argentinian or Australian models on the Irish situation would result in just 7,000" dairy farmers, 4,000 sheep farmers and a little more than 10,000 beef farmers," he said.
He added the Government could not stand by and watch rural Ireland being turned into "an Indian reservation" to be visited once a year by tourists.
Two hundred delegates from 24 countries are attending the conference.
Herd of cattle last week to protect the public from the risks of mad cow disease, officials said yesterday.
The 115 head herd belonged to a farmer in the western town of Rennerod in Rhineland Palatinate state who had bought 40 cows in 1992 from a breeder in Lower Saxony, officials in Montabaur said.