There are grave concerns among farmers that beef imported into the country will ruin their livelihoods.

And news countries previously hit by mad cow disease - including the US, UK and Canada - could export beef to Australia has created even greater alarm.

Countries have been able to apply to import red meat into Australia from Monday, March 1.

At a special beef forum in Armidale on Saturday, Kempsey primary producers voted overwhelmingly to reject the Federal Government’s decision allowing countries to apply to export red meat to Australia.

Producer Carolyn Duff, who with her husband David runs nearly 1000 head of beef cattle on their property at Toorooka, said it was unbelievable the Government would consider allowing potentially tainted meat into Australia.

“Our beef is clean and green with the highest standards in the world,” she said.

“Why in hell would they want to import beef from countries that have mad cow disease?

“I can understand why we need to import some things, but not beef that could be diseased.”

Mad cow disease is a fatal cattle disease that affects the central nervous system.

Humans who eat infected beef are at risk of the fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob brain disease.

“The big thing is Australian beef producers have to meet stringent standards,” stock and station agent Ian Argue said.

“We have lifetime traceability of cattle, the best slaughter standards in the world and other countries don’t have those standards.

“The Government has said it is prepared to bring meat in from other countries but it doesn’t require them to meet the same standards.”

It has been more than a decade since the Australian Government closed our borders to red meat.

Mrs Duff said if supermarkets started selling imported meat rather than the home grown product, there was a very real probability the archetypal Australian beef farmer would become an endangered species.