Government guarantees quality of Balearic beef

From the start of next month, the Balearic government will start testing local cattle herds for “mad cow” and tests carried out on cattle aged over 30 months will be sent to a Madrid laboratory for examination. However yesterday the Balearic Minister for Agriculture, Mateu Morro, repeated his guarantee that there are no cases of mad cow in the Balearics and that the results of the first two of nine tests already carried out on cattle aged over 30 months have proved negative. Morro, accompanied by Francesc Antich, Balearic Health Minister Aina Salom and the Balearic Minister for the Environment, Margalida Rossello, put on a united front in a bid to try and ease consumer concerns over mad cow. The three met yesterday to discuss the mad cow crisis in Spain. Morro repeated that in the Balearics the European Union guidelines are strictly complied with and that none of the “risk” material, such as food stuffs, have either entered the Balearics or the food chain. Salom added that all of the region's abattoirs also meet EU regulations. Salom said that with regards to the “minor irregularities” discovered at an abattoir in Inca, that the establishment has been banned from sacrificing further animals for the time being and that the frozen meat stored at the plant has been shipped to the mainland for destruction.