Retailers challenged over illegal meat
British farmers have urged retailers to give a public assurance that they are not selling illegally-produced meat from European countries avoiding new welfare legislation.
The law concerns the confinement of sows in individual cages, known as stalls.
The National Pig Association said in December up to 40% of European Union pigs will come from farms flouting the new rules.
Stalls have not been used in the UK for many years, but figures released by Brussels show 80% of EU countries have not yet complied with the ban.
All companies selling imported pork and pork products are being urged by NPA to check their sources of supply very carefully.
"They must be absolutely certain the bacon, sausages, ham, pizzas and other processed pork they sell do not come from farms that are flouting European animal welfare law" said the association.
Most European Union countries have failed to comply with the European Union’s animal welfare directive which from January 2013 bans the prolonged confinement of sows in stalls.
Individual sow stalls have been outlawed on British pig units for 14 years. They are so narrow, pigs cannot turn around — all they can do is sit, stand, and lie down.
As many as 40,000 pigs an hour are being delivered to continental processing plants from illegally-operated pig farms, according to NPA calculations.
"As Britain imports around 60 percent of its processed pork it is inevitable that many consumers are unwittingly supporting this unacceptable European trade in illegally-farmed pigs" said NPA general manager Dr Zoe Davies.
"Shoppers must be told which British retailers and food companies they can trust not to take part in this trade."
Yorkshire pig farmer John Rowbottom, a member of NPA’s policy-making Producer Group said, "If Brussels cannot police its own rules, then British pig farmers will have to do the job for them. British consumers are being sold pork products from continental farms that are operating illegally. It's a gross breach of animal welfare, it is unfair on consumers and it is unfair on British farmers, because it distorts fair trade."
Farm Minister David Heath has scheduled a meeting for February 6 to assess the level of civil disobedience taking place on the EU pig farms.
A call for an emergency summit meeting to prevent the importation was made by Matthew Curtis of pig-breeding company ACMC.
"Figures from the National Pig Association suggest that nearly 5 million sows will be kept under illegal production systems" said Curtis.
"They will produce roughly 96 million pigs - about 1.8 million a week. This is a staggering amount - equivalent to the entire production from Germany and Spain - the EU’s largest pig producers,"
"Imports of such meat will have serious implications for British pig farmers who follow high welfare practices and who have had to comply with a total ban on sow stalls for over a decade," he said.
"Due to cheaper production methods this lower-welfare meat could undercut UK-produced meat and the fiasco in the EU surrounding non-compliance with the battery-cage ban in 2012 will pale into insignificance compared with this."
Data shows France was only 33 percent compliant with the European stalls ban, Germany only 48 percent and Ireland only 57 percent.
Other countries unlikely to hit the deadline include Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.
At its meeting this month, the European Commission is expected to claim the picture is not as bleak as the statistics suggest, because from January member countries will be able to start taking enforcement action.
The NPA has warned that some European countries 'do not have the necessary infrastructure' to identify law-breaking farms.
"We have been pressuring Brussels for more than a year to take measures to protect European consumers from illegally produced pigmeat. Its stock response has always been that it could do nothing until January 1, 2013. Well that date is now upon us and it needs to act urgently to have any chance of keeping its integrity intact," said NPA Chairman Richard Longthorp.
