Memorandum submitted by Halberton Poultry
(X07)
I thank you for the opportunity to make a representation
to your Committee about the impact of new regulations on our industry
and its competitiveness, and on Animal Welfare standards.
As an Industry, we have been and continue to
be, extremely proud of what we do and how we do it, but we seem
to be continually bombarded with new regulations and welfare standards
that seem to do little for bird welfare and public health.
Whilst we all appreciate the need for extremely
high welfare standards and environmental awareness, little heed
seems to be paid to the financial constraints forced on us by
the global market.
Climate change levy would appear to be unworkable
as the prime concern for all poultry farmers and indeed for the
regulatory bodies is bird welfare. This necessarily means that
whatever the stocking density, if the birds are too cold, they
need warming—if the birds are too warm they need cooling.
This coupled with a potential decrease in stocking density (with
no scientific grounding) will necessarily mean that the cost of
producing each kilogram will rise leaving little or no chance
for producers to reach their next target reduction. This levy
would also appear to adversely affect new modern housing as these
tend to be thermally efficient and will also have the latest energy
efficient electrical systems leaving little room for saving fossil
fuel consumption, while old houses will be able to make minor
modifications leading to big savings.
NVZs are a similarly good idea in principle
but any move to add value to litter, rather than spread it on
the ground, fails to receive adequate support and backing and
is thus able to be scuppered without realising the full implications
of this to our industry (litter burning plant at Wellington for
example).
IPPC again seems to be an industrial piece of
legislation directly inflicted on pigs and poultry (both unsubsidised
sectors) at an exhorbitant cost with little perceived benefit
to the environment, bird welfare or food safety. Indeed, it seems
only to be speeding up the rapid export of our entire industry.
All these points are further accentuated by
the stark facts available from Brazil where thirty years ago there
were 250,000 hectares of land down to soya, whilst last years
plantings were somewhere around 25 million hectares. Currently
Brazil is de-foresting at the rate of two football pitches a minute.
If we are truly concerned about global warming
and effects on the environment, surely that would be a better
place to start than here.
As recent television programmes and newspaper
reports have shown, the quality of imported poultry meat leaves
a lot to be desired and can certainly not meet the high standards
we earnestly and honestly strive for. We are quite rightly strictly
regulated and inspected throughout the life of the bird and indeed
in the packing station by the SVS and produce to the highest standards
of bird welfare and food safety anywhere in the world, but the
incessant stream of legislation has already pushed our industry
to the brink of extinction. What we desperately need is some joined
up thinking between the various legislative bodies that pay due
heed to the financial implications that their unfounded regulations
place on an industry already safely feeding our customers.
At the end of the day, especially nowadays,
there is no one more concerned about bird welfare than the farmer
himself, as this directly impinges on the profitability of his
enterprise.
Halberton Poultry
11 April 2003
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