At the start of a new decade, we hear from four key industry leaders what they believe will be the main issues affecting poultry producers in the coming year. In this final instalment, we hear from the chief executive of the British Poultry Council, Peter Bradnock
The General Election will bring a big turnover of MPs, and on current polls, a change in government itself.
The BPC and members will need to acquaint these newcomers with the poultrymeat sector and the real benefits it brings in terms of jobs and the rural economy, environmentally sustainable production, and its positive contribution to the nation's nutritional health and food security.
Irrespective of who forms the next government, the main priority policy areas for BPC will carry over from this year: Responsibility and cost sharing, Meat Hygiene Service (MHS) inspection charges, beating campylobacter and tackling EU rules on salmonella, negotiating new targets for Climate Change Agreements and moving to a more sustainable sourcing policy for soya in poultry feed.
Next year the BPC is also spearheading an initiative on people and skills recruitment and retention to build for the future of the industry.
Responsibility and cost sharing will see a draft enabling Bill published and likely to be laid before the House before the election. A change of government may drop the idea of establishing a new body to take on animal health and instead leave the responsibility with DEFRA ministers, but cost sharing is likely to accelerate whoever gets in power. As the biggest farm animal sector which costs DEFRA the least, poultry must ensure its voice is heard in the ongoing structure that emerges.
The move to full recovery of meat inspection costs by the MHS will also accelerate next year. Although the MHS has made big commendable cuts in its budget it could be argued that these are mainly reflecting reduced work on behalf of DEFRA and the closure of large numbers of slaughterhouses, and that significant efficiency savings have yet to be realised.
The Food Standards Agency board no longer wants to fund the costs of the MHS not currently met from plant inspection charges, but the idea of doubling the overall charges to plants will not be accepted by the industry without further cuts first in MHS costs and an equitable level of charges across all plants.
The safety of poultrymeat will have even higher profile with reducing campylobacter a main priority. While we don't have any single effective measure to keep it out of flocks on farms, we will be focusing on interventions in the processing plant to at least reduce the numbers of organisms on carcasses.
Campylobacter is quite different from salmonella. For salmonella, the UK poultry sector has been very successful at prevention and control in poultry flocks, but all Member States are will be looking at criterion for the implementation of the requirement that poultrymeat placed on the market must be free of salmonella in a sample of 25g.
We are working with DEFRA trialing chicken welfare indicators monitored in the processing plant to show the status of the flock on the farm, as part of the new broiler welfare Directive. Agreeing performance thresholds and sanctions will be challenging and, of course, we must have an eye to how other Member States are implementing the rules in regards their flocks which may be supplying the UK market.
The move to a more sustainable policy on sourcing soya for feed will occur in the early part of next year and will put the UK poultrymeat sector on the same sourcing basis as other meats and proteins.
The climate change debate will demand more action than words, including by agriculture. The negotiations of energy reduction targets for new agreements to succeed the BPC's 10 year Climate Change Agreements is expected to be tough and stringent conditions of ammonia abatement in environmental permits for poultry farms will bite harder.