Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
MR PETER
STEVENSON
10 JUNE 2003
Q20 Mr Mitchell: Do they not fight
each other?
Mr Stevenson: In barn or?
Q21 Mr Mitchell: In the barn.
Mr Stevenson: There can be aggression
or feather pecking problems but, again, there is a range of science
and practical experience showing the kinds of things you must
do if you want to keep feather pecking down to low levels. Again,
it is not an inevitable problem, it can be addressed and many
producers do successfully address it.
Q22 Mr Wiggin: If we can turn to
broiler chickens for a bit. CIWF has said that "millions
of UK broilers suffer from painful leg disorders" as a result
of being selectively bred to reach slaughter weight in 41 days.
The British Veterinary Poultry Association say that there is "tremendous
progress" that has been made in improving leg strength, but
that "welfare groups . . . do not accept the validity of
this data". Do you accept that leg strength has increased?
Within the constraints of current production systems, what should
the industry do to improve leg strength?
Mr Stevenson: I would accept that
over the last ten years there has been some improvement, the problem
is not as bad as it was ten years ago, but the problem is still
bad. The welfare problems of broilers are obviously totally different
from the welfare problems of the laying hens. The core problem
is that modern broilers have been pushed through selective breeding
to reach their slaughter weight in around about 40-41 days which
is twice, probably by now more than twice, as fast as 25-30 years
ago. You are not talking about a marginal change, you are talking
about a fundamental change. What is growing quickly is the muscle
that is eaten as meat but the supporting structure of legs, heart
and lungs is simply not keeping pace. The legs often cannot support
the growing body weight and serious painful leg disorders result
for millions, probably tens of millions, of birds a year. It has
got better but it is still a major problem. Again, it is not me
saying that, it is the science saying that.
Q23 Mr Wiggin: Do you truly believe
that?
Mr Stevenson: Absolutely.
Q24 Mr Wiggin: That is extraordinary.
Mr Stevenson: A major literature
review on the subject was published in the year 2000 by the European
Commission Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare,
veterinary experts from across the Community, including this country,
and they were absolutely clear time and again in the report in
identifying that by far the most serious problem for broiler chickens
were these leg disorders.
Q25 Mr Wiggin: But this data is seriously
out of date, do you not agree?
Mr Stevenson: That was the year
2000.
Q26 Mr Wiggin: We are talking about
a five week lifespan of poultry that can be bred extremely quickly.
I believe that what you are saying is actually rather a cynical
fund raising effort. We have seen this with the RSPCA and now
we are seeing the same story with all the welfare groups. The
evidence just is not there.
Mr Stevenson: There is a lot of
dispute about the precise percentage of the flock. I do not think
there is any serious dispute that there is a high level of leg
disorders and this is the most serious problem affecting broilers.
Remember broiler genotypes being used are the same virtually worldwide,
certainly Europe-wide. A study done in Denmark published in 2000
found 30% of the birds suffering. They scored them as to gait,
as to walking ability, and they found 30% having gait scores of
three, four and five which the science establishes are likely
to cause chronic pain. A study that was done in Sweden just last
year, within the last 18 months, looking at one broiler, the Ross
208, commonly used in this country, found 14% had leg disorders
and with the Cobb, another very common bird, 26%. I am afraid
there is a lot of scientific evidence showing that this is a serious
problem. I do not necessarily want to get into a debate about
whether we are talking about 14% or 26, but it is not a marginal
problem and I am surprised that you—
Q27 Mr Wiggin: I have seen it for
myself. We are talking about a 41 day life cycle and you are talking
about a 14% leg disorder. We are talking minimal in terms of actual
real life. We lose 35 million chickens a year to incineration
in this country alone. Obviously we all want to see better welfare
standards because happier hens grow faster and are bigger but
I think that this is not based on a constructive mind set bearing
in mind that British poultry must compete on an international
stage and I think the progress that they have made in this has
been tremendous. It seems to me that there are groups of people,
like your own organisation, who are very keen to see this particular
leg disorder constantly reoccurring for their own justification.
To what extent would the welfare of slower growing chickens be
better than faster growing chickens?
Mr Stevenson: Immensely. Laying
hens, for example, grow at a much slower rate and do not get leg
problems, or very rarely. You do not have a high level of leg
problems in laying hens. Slow growing broiler chickens do not
suffer from these problems.
Q28 Mr Wiggin: To be fair, laying
hens are not grown for their legs.
Mr Stevenson: If you look at studies
of broiler chickens of slow growing breeds, a study was done two
or three years ago looking at 13 different genotypes, both the
very fast growing ones and the more traditional slow growing ones,
and the discrepancy in the level of leg disorders was immense.
This is largely coming from fast growth. It is a serious problem
that tends to cause pain during the last seven to ten days of
that short 41 day life. You talked about some figures, the industry
did its own study which they completed a couple of years ago and
they concluded that, in fact, the figures were much lower than
the figures I have given. They were saying that these leg disorders
only affect 2.5% of the flock. We have just had a report done
by Professor Donald Broom of the University of Cambridge, who
would be accepted as one of the leading animal welfare veterinary
scientists in this country, who, referring to the industry's data,
says "The data themselves are flawed to such an extent that
the conclusions are not meaningful". So the industry's own
data has been severely criticised by one of the leading academic
experts in this country. Not me, not an NGO, I am talking about
an independent academic expert.
Q29 Diana Organ: Can I just make
one thing clear from the comments that were made by my colleague.
He said that a vast number of chickens are incinerated but, of
course, those chickens that are incinerated are not broilers,
are they?
Mr Stevenson: I did not know what
kind of chickens he was referring to.
Mr Wiggin: That is the Fallen Stock Directive
total number of chickens across the UK.
Q30 Diana Organ: They are mostly
hen layers.
Mr Stevenson: Could I clarify
just one point. Again, the improvements I would like to see in
broilers I would like to see EU-wide, which is not to say that
I would—
Q31 Mr Wiggin: Worldwide.
Mr Stevenson: I would indeed like
to see worldwide but EU-wide would be a very good start. You have
to remember you have got 800 million birds a year in this country,
4,000 million a year in the EU as a whole, and there are no species
specific laws protecting broilers on farms. This is an utter scandal,
that the most numerous of all farm animals are unprotected by
the law on farms.
Q32 Chairman: Before we move on to
Diana on farm assurance, we had evidence from one chicken producer,
who I believe is struggling to a major degree, who said that welfare
standards are high in the UK but those same standards are not
applied elsewhere, including some of our European partners. Is
there much of a void that has to be bridged within the EU?
Mr Stevenson: No, I would say
that broiler rearing standards are pretty well the same in all
EU countries and in all EU countries in welfare terms are totally
unsatisfactory. The only shining exception is France—I suspect
the figure of 12% free-range I gave you may be slightly modest,
but I was being cautious—which does have these very good
Label Rouge broiler systems.
Q33 Diana Organ: The industry, and
in fact the consumer, very much welcomes farm assurance schemes.
Do any quality assurance schemes' standards meet your ideals for
animal welfare?
Mr Stevenson: No. Can I make it
absolutely clear, I think farm assurance schemes could be a really
great way of pushing welfare forward, both in the poultry industry
and other industries, but if you then look at the standards from
the welfare point of view—obviously I cannot comment on
things like traceability or whatever—they are disappointing.
Indeed, I am very nervous that what they give the public is a
misleading sense that all is well. The very word "assurance"
is a very comforting word and yet when you look at both the egg
and the broiler side of the industry, when we talk about any of
the major problems that we have been discussing in the last half
hour, the schemes do not take us any way forward, they do not
push the industry forward. The Lion scheme for eggs does allow
the use of the battery cage. The Chicken scheme allows the use
of these very fast growing birds. It actually allows stocking
densities higher than those recommended in DEFRA's code. It does
nothing to address another serious problem that is in my written
submission, which is hunger, these restricted feeding regimes
in the breeding flock. Not one single major welfare problem is
addressed by the chicken industry's schemes. Yes, farm assurance
could be really important but we do need standards to be higher.
Q34 Diana Organ: Following on from
that, since you do not believe that any of the schemes, whether
it is the Lion Quality Assured or the Quality British Turkey schemes,
meet your ideals for animal welfare, what would you want to see
then? We have a difficulty here with the consumer because if the
consumer wants to make a choice on the basis of welfare, I think
many consumers would think that faced with a Red Tractor or the
Lion Quality Assured Scheme, because they are farm assurance schemes
this has been given the seal of approval, not just on traceability,
hygiene and production methods but actually there is a welfare
element too. What would you want to see then so that the consumer
makes the choice? We all know that free-range is free-range, but
something else that says that animal welfare is a priority in
the production of this product.
Mr Stevenson: As I say, I think
the quality assurance schemes could perfectly well fulfil that
role, I just think they need better standards. Beyond that, if
a consumer were to say to me, "What should I be looking for?",
with the meat birds I would say free-range and with hens I would
say free-range or barn.
Q35 Diana Organ: Are you concerned
about the compliance with farm assurance schemes? It is surprising,
the number of farms that state they have this assurance but when
you look at it, and from surveys, a significant number of farms
do not comply with the certification standards. Are you aware
of problems where people are saying that they are registered for
farm assurance but do not meet the compliance?
Mr Stevenson: We have not come
across that but, equally, it is not something we have gone looking
for to study, so I cannot help on that. Sorry.
Chairman: Some of the evidence we have
received suggests that even the slight costs which you argue are
associated with improved standards of welfare would mean that
they would go out of business. Can we explore this area of the
economics of welfare.
Q36 Mr Mitchell: What worries me,
because I think a lot of what you are saying is true and acceptable,
is the cost of it because you are saying—this is about eggs
but you also say the same about poultry—"The corporate
consumers can between them prevent UK and EU farmers from being
undermined by battery egg imports once the EU prohibition on battery
cages comes into force in 2012; they can do this by adopting a
policy of only buying or using eggs produced to EU welfare standards,
and refusing to import battery eggs from third countries".
You say much the same on poultry. Fat chance.
Mr Stevenson: Thank you because
you have read out the bit that to me, in that section of the submission,
is the most important, so I am very happy to stand by that. Even
people in the poultry industry who might disagree with me on welfare
would acknowledge that I feel passionately about not just a need
for welfare improvements but they should be done in an economically
viable way. I genuinely do not want to see UK or EU farmers lose
market share. If I refer to EU it is because we know realistically
that these changes are happening on an EU level, we are talking
about an EU Hens Directive. I believe it can be done but it does
need much more energy from government and from the industry to
say "Okay, society, if you want us to go forward with these
changes then you have to support us in various ways". As
regards the individual consumer, I provided some figures, and
I have been looking at some more in the last two days, all of
which are coming down to the same thing, that the on-farm cost
difference—not talking about the retail price in the shop—between
cage production for eggs and barn or free-range is often tiny.
With barn there are a number of different figures but they all
boil down to about one pence per person per week, it is tiny.
With free-range it is five pence, some of the figures six pence
per person per week. These are not huge sums. The first part of
the strategy has got to be that the public has got to be willing
to pay that bit extra.
Q37 Mr Mitchell: But that is the
crucial point, the public is not. The consumer will always go
for the cheapest price and supermarkets, therefore, will buy it.
Mr Stevenson: I would really plead
with the Committee to rethink that. That is the familiar notion.
We did a survey in 2001 of UK supermarkets specifically on egg
sales and five out of these supermarkets reported that 50% or
more of their egg sales are now non-cage, free-range or barn.
It is slow progress but it is happening. It is difficult but not
pie in the sky. To me the real key players are not the individual
consumer, it is what I have called in this submission the corporate
consumer, which I think are the supermarkets, the big chain restaurants
and, crucially, the food manufacturers, the people who make the
ready-made food, the cakes and sauces. Remember the notion of
corporate social responsibility is very much in the air nowadays
and if they all would respond to that by saying "Look, whatever
the EU standards are we will support them", whether it is
just banning the battery cage or banning the enriched cage as
well. "We are not going to undermine those standards by running
off to India, Brazil or America and importing battery eggs".
Some of them are already doing this. McDonalds have got a strict
policy that all their eggs are free-range, not just the eggs you
see as eggs but their sauces, their cakes, whatever. If McDonalds,
who nobody can claim have got a niche market, with their very
broad consumer base, can do it, others could too if they want
to. Pizza Express, say they have only used free-range eggs since
1965. These companies can do it. Government and industry need
to put much more pressure on them, and we will happily join them,
and I have offered to do so in the past, to get these large corporate
consumers to support EU standards. That does not mean they cannot
import but if they are importing they have to be eggs or poultry
meat produced to EU welfare standards. It is quite a mountain
but it is not an unclimbable one.
Q38 Mr Mitchell: All the precedents
are against you.
Mr Stevenson: What about McDonalds,
though?
Mr Mitchell: Look at manufacturing, look
at textiles, look at garments, everything is going to China. Look
at call centres, everything is going to India because the costs
of production are cheaper there. If they also supplement lower
costs of production with lower standards of welfare, making production
cheaper in any case, British industry is going to be battered
to hell quite frankly. Look at stall and tether with pigs, there
was a huge outcry when that was not applied in the EU and EU pig
meat came in much cheaper than ours. That was within the EU. You
cannot prohibit trade from cheaper producers and you cannot subsidise
your own production, as you suggest in your evidence through the
Rural Development Programme, you cannot do either. How are you
going to stop the consumer market driving prices down and, therefore,
boosting imports?
Q39 Chairman: Before you answer that,
Mr Stevenson, can I say that one of the biggest corporate consumers
is clearly the public sector and your evidence refers to that,
but do public bodies not have an obligation to comply with best
value which might be breached if they were to look for higher
welfare standards?
Mr Stevenson: I think there is
a whole range of problems. On the sow stalls point, can I just
say that the pig industry itself does not make any serious claim
that the problems of the British pig industry are to do with the
ban on sow stalls. They acknowledge that the huge price differential
that existed between British pig meat and continental, when the
problem was at its height two or three years ago, was mainly due
to the high value of sterling and the fact that at a certain point
we had banned meat and bonemeal and the continent had not.
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