Small abattoirs face decimation
15 June 2000
Small abattoirs ‘face decimation’
By Alistair Driver
SMALL abattoirs face “serious decimation” unless the government starts contributing to meat hygiene inspection charges, ministers are to be told.
A taskforce set up to examine Meat Hygiene Service inspection charges is set to advise the government that it should begin paying some inspection costs.
Unless it does so, the meat industry is threatened with the “serious decimation of the small and medium sized abattoir and cutting plant sector”.
The task force, chaired by former Meat and Livestock Commission chief executive Colin Maclean, is due to ratify its report on Thursday (15 June).
A draft copy seen by Farmers Weekly recommends a radical change to the charging system to enable small abattoirs to be charged on a throughput basis.
This would be cheaper for them than having to pay the hourly rate charged by Meat Hygiene Service veterinary inspectors.
The draft report also recommends that higher throughput abattoirs should still be charged on an hourly rate, if it is cheaper for them to do so.
However, charging on a throughput basis, as is practised in all other European Union states, would leave a shortfall in Meat Hygiene Service funds.
The government has always stuck by the principle that the Meat Hygiene Service should be essentially self-financing and recover all its costs.
But the task force says ministers should make up the shortfall, “which could be between 14 million and 19m in 2001/02 and each year thereafter”.
This is “perfectly legal” under the European Union Charges Directive, it adds.
Changes to the charging system are needed because the introduction of full-time veterinary cover in 2001/02 will add 11m on to industry, it believes.
It is backing moves to move the inspection regime from to a risk-based system which would allow more delegation of official controls to auxiliaries.
The recommendations have been welcomed by the Soil Association, one of 138 organisations currently campaigning to save small abattoirs.
According to The Independent, Britains booming organic meat market is “set to collapse” unless the government offers a lifeline to small abattoirs.
A separate report by the pressure group Compassion in World Farming claims that animals are being rushed through some abattoirs to maximise throughput.
Farm animals are so poorly stunned for slaughter that they sometimes regain consciousness after their throats have been cut, it claims.