6 Ten issues for action
BACKGROUND
We believe that the government's procurement standards
(GBS), which introduced animal welfare provisions for the
first time when they were launched in September 2011,
need to be reviewed and revised. A review is due in
summer 2014 which will look at changes in the standards
to promote British food and products. This is a good
opportunity to revise the GBS on animal welfare. At
present the standards on fish procurement go above UK
minimum by for instance setting targets for use of Marine
Stewardship Council-approved fish or higher
environmental standards but there are no stretching
targets on animal welfare. The GBS use baseline standards
and do not recommend higher welfare standards such as
free-range eggs, use of assurance schemes or meat from
animals who have been pre-stunned.
2. Review the Government Buying
Standards (GBS)
WHAT WE WANT
The government to recommend the use of
effectively placed and utilised mandatory CCTV
in all slaughterhouses and to incentivise
opportunities through the Rural Development
Programmes for increasing sheep and
lamb retention in the UK and so reduce longdistance
transport .
WHAT WE WANT
The government to agree that its procurement
standards need to be improved and to introduce
new standards that promote higher animal welfare
standards particularly on eggs and meat.
BACKGROUND
The majority of abattoirs used by retailers now have CCTV
and the RSPCA welfare standards used by Freedom Food
have mandated 100 percent CCTV coverage in abattoirs
since 2011. However this accounts for less than half the
abattoirs in the UK - the last Food Standards Agency (FSA)
report showed that 38 percent of the 253 red meat
slaughterhouses and 56 percent of the 75 poultry
slaughterhouses surveyed had CCTV.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has recommended use
of CCTV as a monitoring tool as it provides a way of
observing the slaughtermen without them being aware
they are being monitored7
. A number of
prosecutions of abattoirs for breach of slaughter
regulations and animal welfare provisions, have highlighted
the need for greater transparency.
3. Incentivise improvements to slaughter and
live transport by establishing mandatory
CCTV in slaughterhouses and reducing longdistance
transport of animals.
Costs of CCTV implementation will vary depending on the
numbers of cameras required. Cameras need to be
positioned to record all activities at every point during the
unloading, lairage, handling, stunning and killing processes
when an animal could be at risk. Cost is reported to range
from £3,000 for the smaller abattoirs to £10,000 for large
abattoirs. Whilst it is recognised that additional costs are
more of an issue for small abattoirs, when the RSPCA
standards were changed to require mandatory CCTV, all
Freedom Food scheme abattoir members remained in the
scheme and installed CCTV.
Whilst the numbers of calves and sheep being transported
to the continent for slaughter has reduced in the past five
years8, there are no plans to review or improve the
legislation at a European level until at least 2016. The calf
trade reduced by some 90 percent over the past seven
years due to incentives being put in place by retailers and
others to rear animals that used to be transported
overseas. The governments in England and Wales have a
real opportunity to offer incentives for the sheep industry
under the rural development plans for England and Wales,
to encourage farmers to retain and rear sheep in the UK
rather than send them abroad.