The big debate: AGAINST live exports

In some respects, British farmers are right to claim the moral high ground on animal welfare.

The UK can be proud of regulations stipulating higher welfare for pigs and calves than in the rest of Europe. But one issue which continues to seriously tarnish the image of British farming is the transport of live sentient animals on journeys of up to 100 hours across Europe.

Live exports – which continue despite the easy availability of refrigerated transport and over-capacity in the UK slaughtering industry – are not just a PR disaster for UK farmers, but potentially an economic one. The UK sends tens of thousands of sheep and calves overseas, while importing nearly 25% of the beef and 35% of the lamb it consumes. Surely there is a chance here for British farmers, given the growing consumer demand for local food produced to high quality and welfare standards?

DEFRA says the UK exports nearly 90,000 sheep and lambs a year for slaughter on long journeys across Europe. In the hot summers of southern Europe, where EU transport rules are often poorly enforced, heat and lack of water can be lethal.

Who would have imagined 10 years ago that Compassion in World Farming would be encouraging people to buy British veal? Now, post-veal crates, we are doing just that and working closely with the RSPCA, dairy and beef farmers, retailers and government to link milk producers to veal and beef rearers in the UK. Calves raised on higher welfare British farms now enjoy much better living conditions – including compulsory straw bedding – than most of those reared in continental Europe, where barren slatted floors are the norm.

Dairy calves reared in Britain for veal or beef also escape the fate of hundreds of thousands like them who are shot at birth or exported to veal units on the Continent. The exhaustion, stress and dehydration caused by these journeys take a heavy toll on calves just a few weeks old, which have poorly developed immune systems and are particularly vulnerable to heat and cold. Academic studies have shown that significant weight loss, post-transport infections and mortality are common.

France may seem a short journey across the Channel from Dover, but many British calves begin their journeys hundreds of miles distant from Dover and end them as far away as Spain. We recently traced the journeys of British veal calves exported to a farm in Spain through official paperwork from DEFRA. Two calves had made a journey of 103 hours from farms in Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion, via an export assembly market and two staging posts, each of which involved the stressful process of loading and unloading. Other calves had made journeys of between 50 and 80 hours from northern England and Scotland.

The Meat and Livestock Commission estimates that 70,000 calves were exported from the UK in 2007 and that there were 150,000 unrecorded calf deaths.

British farmers rear just 77% of the beef consumed in the UK and they could certainly make a significant dent in the shortfall by fattening home-grown dairy calves. Earlier this week, Anthony Gibson of the NFU was quoted in The Guardian, saying: “Rearing male calves from the dairy herd for either beef or veal in this country makes more sense than exporting them for someone else to add value.” That is a point with which I wholeheartedly agree.