To overcome the effect of BSE, cattle feed production in EU is expected to increase in 2002

Lead: Brussels, June 17 (Reuters) - cattle feed production in the European Union will rise by two percentage points in 2002 as consumer confidence is gradually recovering from last year's mad cow disease crisis, the European Union's feed industry group feefac announced on Monday In 2001, cattle feed production in the EU was 2% lower than that in the previous year, but there was a wide gap between Member States: Spain, for example, was down 10%, while Austria was up 10% According to the report, the UK, a big cattle feed producer in the EU, has successfully restored consumer confidence after the BSE incident, so feed production is expected to increase by 5.6%, while Germany's production is likely to decrease by 5.5% After the outbreak of BSE in Germany, Italy and Spain, the European Union banned the use of meat and bone meal in animal feed in January 2001, because it was suspected that the contaminated meat and bone meal might be the carrier of BSE Statistics on pig feed production show that Spain, the largest producer of pig feed in the EU, has doubled its output in seven years, and now it accounts for 20% of the EU But in Belgium and the Netherlands, pig feed production fell by 1% and 3% respectively in 2001 In 2001, EU chicken feed production increased by 3.2% Due to health problems, chicken feed production in Italy and Belgium decreased by 10% in 2000, but in 2001, it increased by 4% Feefac pointed out that the total production of mixed fodder in the EU is likely to decrease by 1 to 2 percentage points in 2002, with the EU production of 125.8 million tons in 2001.