Posts Tagged ‘Defra’

Deadly superbugs now widespread on farms

Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

Scientists at a conference on antibiotic resistance today were due to hear that “We are faced with the potential loss of antimicrobial therapy. Effective national and international programmes of control to combat these problems are urgently needed.” The stark warning comes from Professor Gary French of Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospital & Kings College, London.

British government scientists were also expected to admit that a new, almost untreatable, type of antibiotic resistance in E. coli has been identified on more than one in three of all dairy farms in England and Wales.

(more…)

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UK Government to break promises on animal cruelty?

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

Two of the most remarkable animal welfare reforms, achieved by the UK Government, could well be under threat. Ironically, it is the Government itself that appears to be considering undermining both the EU ban on barren battery cages and the UK ban on debeaking for laying hens.

The pro-welfare northern European states, such as Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Finland, are firmly opposed to any postponement of the historic EU ban on barren battery cages. This is due to come into force on 1st January 2012. The UK too has consistently opposed a postponement. Until now, it appears.

As revealed in the Daily Mail, the UK is now quietly lobbying Brussels for changes in the law. The suggested changes would allow producers who – unlawfully – are still using barren battery cages after January 2012 to sell these eggs, so long as they weren’t for export. If the proposal is accepted, illegally produced eggs could be sold in the country of production. And in so doing, the ban would be postponed, at least partially. Not quite what was intended in 1999 when the then Labour Minister, Nick Brown MP, negotiated an end to perhaps the cruellest of all factory farm systems.

And why is this suggestion being put forward? Due to fears that some producers might not comply with the law, despite having had a decade to get ready for the ban. The approach, suggested behind the scenes by the Government’s Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), is inconsistent with its public ‘no postponement’ position. It would lead to just that – a postponement – albeit for eggs produced for domestic consumption.

What is so appalling is that the Government’s bizarre suggestion would not only allow illegally-produced eggs to be sold in this country, but would reward those producers who have done least in the face of a generous phase-out period for battery cages. It would also condemn countless hens to yet more years of misery in a system that is both cruel and unnecessary.

Thankfully, the UK is alone amongst the pro-welfare north-western Member States; the others are firmly opposed to any postponement.

And all this comes at a time when we know that the UK Government is considering an open-ended delay on the ban on debeaking for laying hens due to come into force in 2011. This follows advice from its national welfare advisory body, the Farm Animal Welfare Council, which effectively and misguidedly suggested an indefinite postponement. A Government consultation is due to take place over the coming weeks. However Defra has already made clear that it does want to postpone the ban on debeaking indefinitely.

Sadly, the promised end to some of the worst farming practices looks less certain. Please join our campaign to ensure that the UK Government stays firmly behind its own welfare reforms. Please send an urgent e-card to the Minister and show him that the public expects promises to be kept, especially when ending cruelty to animals.

On behalf of the millions of hens caged and mutilated, I thank you.

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Chickens: progress or slipping backwards?

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Have we just seen standards slip further for broiler chickens?  That’s my question following the decision, by the UK Government, to allow broiler chickens to be packed even more tightly on factory farms.  Especially as, in the bizarre world of Euro-politics, we’ve cautiously welcomed the move.  Why?  Well, only because it’s not as bad as it could have been.

The UK Government’s own recommendations on welfare (PDF) state that chickens reared for meat should not be stocked higher than 34 kilograms (kg) of bird per square metre.  In simple terms, that means a maximum of about 17 birds per square metre of floor space.  

If that wasn’t bad enough, at the turn of the century, the then Agriculture Minister showed total disregard for his own welfare advice by helping to launch a national farm assurance scheme that allows chickens to be packed even tighter.  The Assured Chicken Production scheme, which comes under the ‘Red Tractor’ farm assurance banner, says birds can be stocked at 38kg (or 19 birds) per square metre.  

Now the UK Government has given the green light for an even higher stocking density, with 39kg now being permitted. Okay, only an increase of about half a bird per square metre. But given they are already crammed so tightly, it’s change in the wrong direction.  Backwards, not forwards.  A reduction in welfare standards, despite the outcry following recent public campaigns, not least by our friend and staunch Chicken Out campaigner, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.  

Where is the positive in this story?  Especially given that Europe’s dreadful new law allows countries to stock even higher, up to 42kg/sq m, or about 21 birds, in that barren space.  Well, the small mercy is that the UK Government has gone slightly on the better side of bad by ruling that chicken farmers cannot stock so highly.

And all this despite strong scientific evidence from the European Commission’s own panel of experts which says that stocking density should be considerably lower; no higher than 25kg/sq m.  Going much above this level, over 30kg/sq m, and they say there is a “steep rise in the frequency of serious problems” for bird welfare.  We have a long way to go.

As the Government slides backwards, Compassion is working hard with supermarkets and other food companies to ensure that their own standards don’t slip, but continue to rise.  What gives immense support to our efforts is that consumers are increasingly choosing higher welfare chicken, be it Freedom Food indoor reared at lower stocking density, free range or organic.  We can offer consumers advice to promote compassionate shopping for poultry and our good food shopping guide is the perfect companion in the supermarket aisle.

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Government urged to stick to its guns over debeaking

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

Scientific and practical evidence shows that the UK ban on debeaking of laying hens should go ahead. That’s the message we delivered to the UK Minister responsible for this area following the publication of our new report demonstrating that this mutilation is not only painful but also unnecessary.

Debeaking (or ‘beak-trimming’ as it is often referred) involves removing a chunk of the bird’s beak with a red-hot blade or a laser beam. It is a serious mutilation used to control injurious pecking caused by factors such as inappropriate husbandry systems, management or strain of hen.

In support of the UK ban on debeaking, due to be implemented from 2011, Compassion released a new report, ‘Controlling feather pecking and cannibalism in laying hens without beak trimming.’ It shows that the mutilation causes suffering to the birds, whether by using a hot-blade, or the new ‘innovation’ of infra-red. It also shows that, by keeping the right breed under the right conditions, debeaking is unnecessary.

Our report describes the positive experiences in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Switzerland, where debeaking is already banned. It shows that getting the living conditions right for hens, giving them balanced food and using breeds of bird that are not prone to pecking at each other, are important in overcoming problems of injurious pecking amongst the birds. In Austria, we found that the major farm certification schemes themselves don’t allow hens to be debeaked. Austria, a welfare-friendly country that keeps the majority of its hens in non-cage systems, has now reached the point where debeaking is virtually absent and feather pecking not generally considered a problem, thanks to good, well managed ways of farming.

The report is the latest step in our campaign to counter those undermining the ban, not least the Government’s own welfare advisory body, the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC). FAWC’s recent advice was that the ban, due to be implemented in 2011, should be postponed indefinitely. The word they put to it was that a new implementation date itself should not be “reviewed” until 2015. In other words, a new date for the ban would not even be considered possibly until the second term of what could be a new government. Or as I put it in a recent post, that the ban would be kicked into the long grass. The loser? The hens of course.

In our meeting with the Animal Welfare Minister, Jim Fitzpatrick, we pressed home the message that the Government should go ahead and ban debeaking rather than effectively scrap it through an indefinite postponement. Thank you so much to all of you that have taken part in our campaign so. Nearly 4,000 supporters so far have taken part in our campaign action. We do need to keep up the pressure. Your help, as ever, is be invaluable. Do please help us to get more people behind our campaign. Through our combined efforts, we can take further steps toward keeping the ban and consigning debeaking to the history books in the UK.

Thank you!

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FAWC undermines debeaking ban

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

The British ban on debeaking of laying hens, due to be implemented in January 2011, has been undermined by the Government’s own advisory body, the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC). A recent FAWC letter advises the Minister to defer the ban with no set date for implementation.

Debeaking (or ‘beak-trimming’ as it is often referred) involves cutting off a chunk of the bird’s beak with a red-hot blade or a laser beam. It is a serious mutilation used to control injurious pecking caused by factors such as inappropriate husbandry systems, management or strain of hen.

In its letter, FAWC recommended that the 2011 ban be deferred. Why? To give farmers more time to adjust their methods. Yet the same FAWC letter admits that the industry has already had seven years to prepare. “More effort should have been made by the industry to prepare for the ban” says FAWC. Compassion couldn’t agree more. By developing “new strains of hen or husbandry systems, for example”, says FAWC. Again, couldn’t agree more. Yet, instead of being clear that more should have been and must be done, FAWC’s advice, if accepted, would effectively leave things open-ended.

FAWC has not only recommended the ban be deferred, but that setting a new implementation date itself should not be “reviewed” until 2015. I cannot help seeing this as a way of kicking this badly needed reform into the long grass.

Debeaking a bird can be likened to cutting off our fingers. It robs the bird of the proper use of its primary way of feeling and exploring its world. As FAWC itself puts it, debeaking is a concern because of the “trauma to the bird during the procedure; loss of a sensory tool; and loss of integrity of a living animal by the removal of part of its beak”.

As we discussed in a recent posting, research shows debeaking to be redundant when strains of birds are selected who are less prone to feather pecking and cannibalism and kept in humane conditions.
Given the lamentable lack of action from industry in response to new legislation, surely more pressure should be applied in readiness for the impending reform? After all, the Government’s decision to ban the serious mutilation of debeaking was supported by science.

I sympathise with those in the farming community looking for clear direction. If FAWC’s advice is accepted, then both farmers and animal welfare will be badly let down. What is needed is strong, decisive leadership that sets a date for reform and does what is necessary to see it through. If, and only if, producers need more time to adjust (and Compassion remains unconvinced that they do), then a specific date should be set now that will give clarity on the future and concentrate minds on the task. It cannot be acceptable for urgently needed animal welfare reforms to be undermined by the inaction of a few.

Strong leadership and animal welfare require the ban on debeaking to go ahead. For the sake of millions of birds that will otherwise suffer this serious mutilation, please help us send a strong message to government that debeaking must become a thing of the past. Act now by lobbying the UK government with this eCard.

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Debunking debeaking

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Imagine having the tips of your fingers cut off by an infra-red laser beam. That’s the likes of what will happen to female chicks if some leaders of the poultry industry have their way.

Debeaking is one example of how animals are mutilated to make them fit bad factory farming systems. Compassion opposes debeaking and other mutilations including tail-docking, castration, teeth-clipping, toecutting, desnooding, dehorning and debudding. Mulesing in sheep, which I also wrote about recently, is yet another example.

“Surely it is neither inevitable nor necessary to remove bits and pieces from healthy live animals to render them amenable to our purpose,” wrote Dr. Vernon R. Fowler, former Head of Pig Research at the Scottish Agricultural College in Aberdeen. Dr. Fowler made this statement in his introduction to a report written by my Compassion colleague, Peter Stevenson, in 1994. Our report, For Their Own Good, concluded that we:
“wholeheartedly agree with the Farm Animal Welfare Council’s [FAWC] statement that ‘it is difficult to give general approval to any system of husbandry that relies on painful mutilations to sustain the system’.”

Fast forward 15 years and Compassion is still fighting some within the poultry industry on the beak trimming of laying hens. This is despite a UK Government decision in 2002 banning debeaking by January 2011.
In 1994 we voiced our support for FAWC’s anti-mutilation position. In 2007 we had to take them to task for a mealy-mouthed and deeply disappointing U-turn. FAWC wrote to the Agriculture Minister urging the government to repeal the ban. Compassion made it clear that we opposed FAWC’s turnaround. FAWC subsequently softened its position to “any deferral [for a ban] should not be indefinite.” There is, of course, no better driver to solutions than an imminent prohibition. That is our goal. Compassion will not stop until we secure a victory for the hens we represent.

The reason why this is important is because beaks are to chickens what fingers and noses are to us. Debeaking a baby chick is like cutting off the finger tips of a baby human and the ends of their nose.
So, why are some in industry working hard to sabotage the 2011 ban? Why are they so keen to see debeaking remain permissible? Research shows it is redundant when strains of birds are selected who are less prone to feather pecking and cannibalism and kept in humane conditions.

The answer became apparent in the recent expose by Mercy for Animals in the United States. Their undercover investigation revealed how day-old chicks in the hatchery are snapped by their heads into a spinning debeaker machine fitted with an infra-red laser beam which automatically cuts off the tip of their beaks. DEFRA is set to review the 2011 ban on beak trimming and is looking into allowing the infra-red method. Compassion believes that infra-red is no less unsightly and is just as unnecessary a mutilation as using a red hot blade. We will fight to keep the ban in place.

As Peter Stevenson concluded in our 1994 report, “Systems which cannot be run without mutilating the animals are in need of a radical rethink. They should be modified so that the need for mutilations no longer arises; failing that, they should be abandoned.”

Any which way you cut it, including by infra-red laser beams, debeaking is unacceptable. It is time to debunk debeaking. Act now by lobbying the UK government with an eCard to DEFRA.

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Caged laying hensNocton bus advertisementFace of sow in barren pen with piglets behindLabel Rouge broiler chickens of both sexCute lambs running and jumpingMontbeliard cows on pasturePhilip at FAIBarren veal calf pensSow and piglets foraging and one piglet suckling

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