Closed 'Til Further Notice

Britain's small abattoirs are being systematically eliminated with serious effects for small farmers.

single of the few positive ends of the BSE crisis has been the growing awareness of just in what way unnaturally most food is produc Many clan would now rather buy meat directly from the individual who fed and cared for the animals, than from a multiple-retailer prepared to source from anywhere upon the globe, if the price is right.

This stretch has helped the rapid growing of local meat marketing from one side farmers' markets and other direct sales. As a way forward it tenders real hope to Britain's beleaguered livestock industry. It has significant benefits for the environment and animal welfare. It has also caught the imagination of the consuming public, because it allows them a real personal say in how farm animals are reared. All this, however, is threatened through the mass closure of smaller abattoirs, novel restrictions on meat cutting in butchers stores and a relentless tide of fresh EU regulations, uniquely applied in the UK with bureaucratic sadism.

shortly after Britain joined the public Market in 1973, British abattoirs became the focus of increased regulatory interest. While solitary those wishing to export meat were immediately required to upgrade to filled EEC requirements, some saw the writing upon the wall and closed. by the agency of 1986 numbers had fallen to 1000[1]

A small in number voices of protest were raised, on the other hand most farmers and butchers said little at the time. The los of a scarcely any small abattoirs seemed hardly significant. They were to be set in all country towns and smooth many villages.

However, in July 1991 the EC Council of Ministers adopted Directive 91/497/EEC extending single market sways to red meat traded upon national markets. In 1992, all abattoirs, cutting plants and frigid store operators received a stark warning from MAFF, `Premises will be prohibited from trading unles through 1 January 1993 they have been licensed by means of agriculture departments as complying with EC requirements.'[2]

The EU Directive imposed prohibitively expensive structural and procedural changes plus greatly increased inspection. A further 200 abattoirs clos in 1992[3]

In total the number of licensed r meat abattoirs in Britain has fallen by means of more than 70 per cent from about 1350 in the late 1970 to 339 today. To anyone who thinks of an abattoir as a place of gruesome horrors, this might whole like good news. However it has not l to fewer animals being killed (12473000 livestock units in 1972 12693000 in 1999[4]) it simply means they have to travel further and wait longer

Large-scale farmers predominantly supply animals to multiple-retailers. Each of these uses solitary a few abattoirs and, depending upon the region, journeys to slaughterhouses can be protracted. plane the Soil Association found it was unable to introduce an idealistic three hours maximum journey time and now allows unlimited travel in stages of up to eight hours, in order to provide the supermarkets with organic meat.[5]

The Meat Hygiene Service (MHS) now responsible to the commons Standards Agency, was set up below MAFF in 1995 and replaced the previous combination of parts to form a whole of local authority meat inspection. While the universal was `sold' to the industry as a way of reducing require to be paid [i]or[/i] undergones these have, in fact, increased dramatically. Typical of many, G Thompson and Son a medium-sized abattoir in Durham has seen inspection take away froms rise from 44,000 [pounds sterling] in 1995 to 110000 [pound sterling] in 1999[6] For smaller abattoirs the rise has been nearer 500 for cent.[7]

Food safety problems

Improved enforcement of regulations by dint of the MHS to ensure the removal of offal possibly infected with BSE has clearly been important. The benefits of increased inspection to bring carcass contamination have been les obvious. The decline in Salmonella infection may have more to do changes at production horizontal and other types of nutriment poisoning in the UK have continued to increase. As Professor Hugh Pennington has make notesed most microbiologists see little point in post-mortem inspections.[8] Dr Richard North, a former environmental health officer, has plane suggested that the increased horizontals of inspection are part of the problem[9] Repeated examination of carcasses, he recommends increases the risk of infections, of the like kind as E. coli 0157, being spread within the abattoir. It has also been argued that longer travelling times, which increase horizontals of bruising[10] also increase faecal contamination of live animals. This is capable of raising microbial contamination of carcasses 1000-fold[11] While animals with caked manure upon hides are rejected prior to slaughter, those overspreaded by watery manure, due to increased stres during transport, are not.

Longer journeys also increase take away froms but for producers and dealers able to fill multi-deck lorries to capacity this is not still prohibitive. Travelling times may not exce those specified in welfare legislation and the industry and conduct believe that once loaded, the extent of journey, up to these maximum limits, is not important. For those who recognise farm animals as `sentient beings' and particularly for those who have seen what has been called that `look' in an animal's eye[12] as it views you end the side of a crammed lorry, this is hard to accept; particularly for species of that kind as cattle and pigs which can be acutely aware of their surroundings and easily become distressed.