There’s profit from veal calves in Belgium

Contract rearing is making veal calf production in Belgium a profitable farming enterprise to be in. Sarah Trickett visited the country with the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists

Belgium may be a country better known for its fine chocolates, beer and, of course, Belgian Blue cattle, but not its veal production. However, the Belgian veal industry is on the up.

Following the ban on continuous individual housing of calves and demand for group housing, consumers have reacted positively and demand has increased for the pale meat, with 10% of all meat consumed veal.

However, while veal may exist in the UK, not out of demand but as a surplus product of the dairy industry, in Belgium there is a dedicated market, with Belgian Blue veal calves highly valued when born – worth an astonishing €700 (£615).

And it is a system of contract rearing that has made farming veal a valuable and safe production system, with most veal calves reared this way, according to Sopraco’s manager Willy Oeyen, who slaughters 100,000 veal calves a year.

“We, as the slaughterhouse, organise the buying/sourcing and slaughtering of calves, pay for feed as well as vets and we then pay farmers €175-200 (£155-175) a calf place a year to rear calves. The farmers then pay for buildings, electricity and heating costs,” he explained to journalists on tour of a veal farm in the main veal producing region of De Kempen.

“By having specific rearers and being able to control what feed is given means there can be traceability at all levels. We know the farms where our meat is coming from and for this reason we can offer a lot of guarantees to our consumers.”

For farmer Wim Verheijen, attraction to veal farming moved him away from dairying to finishing, initially, 1200 veal calves. After reinvestment in new buildings five years ago, Mr Verheijen now finishes 980 Belgian Blue calves a year for Sopraco.

Calves are housed individually for the first eight weeks and are then reared in specific groups until slaughtering at about 30-32 weeks. And grouping correctly is crucial, explained Mr Verheijen.

“At collection stations, before bulls even arrive at the farm, they are split in to groups on age and size for homogeneity and then distributed to our farms. Then after eight weeks in the crate we are able to judge drinking speed, size and weight which all determine which group they go in to. We want groups as homogenous as possible so we can get uniform growth,” he said.

Calves are housed in groups of five to 10 animals until slaughter, with the main portion of the diet consisting of milk replacer fed twice a day at 40C along with 0.5kg of wheat straw a day, added milk replacer specialist Jan Druyts of Nukamel.

“Belgian Blue cattle do well on this system because they have good feed conversion, meat quality and conformation. Calves arrive at 50kg and leave at 350kg at six months old.”

However, unlike the few UK veal systems, where calves would likely be bedded on straw so would have some roughage throughout the day, in Belgium the opposite is true. “Because the demand is for the pale meat and not rose veal in Belgium only a minimal amount of straw is fed because it’s the forage that influences rumen development and thus meat colour, explained Mr Druyts. “The value of rose veal is a lot lower – you would probably get €3.5/kg (£3/kg) for rose compared to €8/kg (£7/kg) for conventional veal.”

However, while veal reared in this type of system may make more money, whether it is a system that would be accepted in the UK is a different matter. With most calves born by caesarean section, housed on slats, fed mainly milk with minimal straw and with no form of environmental enrichment, welfare concerns would likely be raised.

However, in other parts of Europe such as Italy, France and Belgium consumers accept this type of system, explains Mr Druyts. “Consumers have reacted positively to group housing. If we couldn’t produce white meat, then we wouldn’t have a market. A lot of our meat is also exported to France and Italy and they require this type of meat,” he said.