As farmers and butchers across the region welcomed the lifting of the beef ban, one of the country's leading food experts voiced a word of caution.

Professor Richard Lacey, one of the first experts to warn of the dangers of BSE in beef, said it was too early to eat it safely.

The Yeadon-based food microbiologist urged consumers to wait for proper tests to be carried out and said the partial lifting of the export ban had been taken for political reasons.

But farmers and butchers across the district welcomed the decision by the European Union governments yesterday to lift the world-wide ban on British beef exports which has been in place since March, 1996.

Secretary of the NFU Wharfedale branch, Michael Rhodes, said: "I think farmers will receive this news with a degree of relief and pleasure. It's been a long hard slog of 32 months and from that point of view we're delighted.

"However, markets lost in 1996 now have to be regained and a lot of hard work has to be done by exporters. We will give them all the support we possibly can."

Ilkley butcher Francis Copley said: "It's a step in the right direction and will renew customer confidence. But it will be a long road to complete recovery."

Keighley butcher Michael Ward, of Stables of North Street, said: "This is good news because it will help bring back confidence in the customer to eat British beef. Hopefully, people will now get back to eating British beef because it is now the safest in the world."

But Professor Lacey said: "There is no scientific data that establishes that it's safe for animals under 30 months.

"We know the infection gets passed on from the mother and no proper tests have been done on the herds presumably to reduce the financial support and compensation being made."

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