Animal Welfare Programme Reviews

Compassion in World Farming emailed me to draw attention to a series of programmes highlighting the plight of animals in intensive farming. Intensive farming is terrible in terms of animal welfare and is extremely bad for the environment. Cheap, sub-standard meat is imported from all over the world at a huge cost to the environment as well as animal and human health.

Looking at images of animals suffering in any way, but especially at the hands of humans, is the stuff of nightmares for me but I was very keen to hear what these programmes had to say.

So armed with a cushion to hide behind, my trusty laptop and a stiff gin I started to watch...

Chickens, Hugh and Tesco too
Monday 26th January, Channel 4, 9pm

Following on from his successful Chicken Out campaign highlighting the state of poultry farming in the UK, this one-off follow-up programme shows Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall return to find out its effects.

In an ideal world, all chickens and farm animals would be free-range but it is unfortunately a far-from-ideal world, so Hugh decides that the middle ground for British farmers, the British public's purse and poultry welfare is RSPCA Freedom Food. Comparing the cramped and horrific conditions of an intensive barn to one that complies with the RSPCA Freedom Food standard, the difference is quite remarkable. The chickens have more room to roam and behave naturally, there are hay bales for them to perch on, they can spread their wings and establish a pecking order. In short, they can behave like chickens. The mortality rate is halved and even a dyed-in-the-wool (or feather) intensive chicken farmer was converted. And all for an increase in cost to the consumer of less than £1 a chicken.

The other main supermarkets have now upped their basic chicken welfare system to the RSPCA level but Tesco, the largest supermarket in the UK, have steadfastly refused, arguing that their welfare standards are sufficient.

So intrepid Hugh, armed with his one share and the support of the minimum 100 shareholders, takes on the might of this retail giant. Braving - in his words - ‘corporate welfare wash' and an outrageous demand for £87,000 to post his resolution to other shareholders, Hugh clubs together with CIWF. He is overwhelmed by the support from the British public, raising the money in under 24 hours. Unsurprisingly, Tesco changed the rules again, in effect making it impossible for Fearnley-Whitingstall to achieve his goal.

In what was a typical David versus Goliath battle, this programme may have convinced many viewers that Tesco was only interested in money and most definitely not animal welfare. Their on-camera representative was so banal, simply reiterating claims that their standards of welfare were satisfactory, and that Tesco customers should not be made to feel guilty about the meat they buy, that she actually did Hugh a great favour, showing Tesco's true colours. However, it was only the almost 20% of shareholders voting against them or abstaining that made Tesco finally sit up and listen.

I am most definitely not a fan of supermarkets but I was worried this programme would turn into an unfounded supermarket bashing, just for the sake of it. In the light of Tesco's antics, however, I think all bashing was completely justified. It is questionable whether their labelling is legal, though doubtless they would find some loophole to argue the legality of their appalling behaviour. Regardless, I have faith in the British public that they can see through such smokescreens.

In this day and age there is no excuse to inflict pain and suffering on farm animals. The difference between the intensive and Freedom Food systems is 90p per bird to the public, a mere drop in the ocean in the Tesco Billions but it makes all the difference in the world to the animals.

Other supermarkets have taken animal welfare on board and have increased chicken rearing conditions to a just-acceptable minimum. I can see no reason, other than greed, for Tesco not to do the same. Shame on them.

As ever, the key is to know what you are buying. Buy local (talk to your butcher), buy British, buy free-range, if you can afford it buy organic (but make sure it is still from the UK). Avoid the cheap supermarket meat and it will help your purse, your health and the environment.

Jo

Anyway, as you can tell I was getting more upset with each word I typed so, ever the coward, I ‘chickened out' of watching the next programme and asked the balanced, level-headed and far more eloquent Judy to review it. Here is what she makes of Jamie Oliver's programme.

Jamie Saves Our Bacon
Thursday 29th January, Channel 4, 9pm

In this programme Jamie Oliver has done for British pigs what Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has done for the poultry industry, but in a very different format. In one and a half hours, in front of a studio audience, we see piglets being born, a piglet having its tail docked, and Jamie attempting to collect sperm from a boar and inseminate a sow. In short films we also see the conditions pigs are kept in in various pig farms in Britain and abroad, a piglet being castrated, and a pig being slaughtered.

Many people, meat-eaters as much as vegetarians, would want to turn away from such graphic images, but I firmly believe that anyone who eats meat should be aware of exactly how it is produced and be concerned about the welfare of the animals. If you find the truth too upsetting to watch, should you be eating meat?

It's good to know that the standard of pig welfare in Britain is higher than in most of the EU. In some countries many sows spend their entire adult life in sow crates, where they produce litters continually. These pigs can stand and lie down, but that's about it. They can't reach round to scratch themselves, they can't curl up and they can't choose where to defecate (pigs are in fact clean animals and in free-range conditions will defecate well away from their living areas). In a novel demonstration, Jamie had four volunteers shut in small cages of similar dimensions relative to body size. They could stand and sit, and were fed a mixture of porridge and beans. Their seats doubled as commodes, and they had to relieve themselves there too, with only a half-length curtain for privacy. Needless to say, after 24 hours they were desperate to be released. Of course, pigs aren't humans, but they are as intelligent as, and possibly more intelligent than, dogs. No one would dream of allowing dogs to be kept in these conditions.

Of course, the higher the welfare, the higher the price, which is why we have a high level of imports of cheap pig products. It seems ludicrous to me that we can ban practices in this country because we think they are unacceptably cruel, but allow the import of animals from these systems. This simply condones and perpetuates these systems as well as greatly disadvantaging British farmers.

So, if you're convinced that we should buy British pork and bacon, what do you need to look for to make sure that the animal was raised in the best conditions possible? According to Animal Aid (June 2008 figures), 70 per cent of British pigmeat comes from intensively reared animals, but even ‘outdoor reared' and ‘outdoor raised' pigs spend at least half of their lives indoors, where they often have no straw and nothing to occupy them. Breeding sows can still be kept in farrowing crates for up to four weeks per pregnancy. The piglets are weaned weeks earlier than they would be naturally, and the sow can produce three litters a year - so that's three months a year being kept in a cage little bigger than their bodies.

This programme is part of the RSPCA's Rooting for Pigs campaign, which is pushing for clearer labelling of pig products, and better laws to protect pig welfare. A survey for the RSPCA found that only 2 per cent of consumers understood terms such as ‘free range', ‘outdoor reared' and ‘outdoor bred'. This is not surprising, as there are no industry-wide agreed definitions when it comes to labelling pig products, unlike the situation for poultry and eggs. As Jamie showed on the programme, many people can't even identify which meat in a supermarket is from British pigs, being misled by pictures of ‘typically British countryside' or wording such as ‘Wiltshire cured'. Certainly, if the pack doesn't clearly state that it is British pork, or that it is free range, then it is fairly safe to say that it isn't! If you're buying from a butcher, so don't have handy labels to read, then ask - a good butcher will be only too pleased to tell you proudly of the welfare standards of the pigs he sells.

One thing that is clear from Jamie's and similar campaigns is that farmers often feel beleagured and unfairly attacked. They are, after all, finding it very difficult to stay afloat and often the price they can sell their animals for is very little more, or in some cases even less, than it costs to produce them. It seems to me that the main reason for this is that we are so used to cheap food and although many people profess to care about the welfare of animals, the lure of cheap imported or intensively reared meat is too tempting.

It's certainly not my place to tell others how they should spend their money, particularly at this time when many are feeling the pinch. But I feel it's important that we try to buy more British meat to help the farmers and the environment. It's estimated that Britons waste about 25 per cent of the food they purchase and so better meal planning would more than cover the extra price of British meat. Stews and so on can be made to go further by adding beans, vegetables or grains. I would rather eat good quality British meat less often than buy cheap imported meat.

Another solution is to use some of the cheaper, less popular cuts of meat. Jamie tells us that there is such demand for the more popular cuts of pork, such as leg, that they have to be imported to meet that demand. On the other hand, we are exporting cuts like shoulder, belly or neck because no one wants to buy them, despite them being very cheap. Jamie demonstrated on the programme just what wonderful delicious meals these cuts can make.

If you would like to try some of our wonderful British cuts, in the February newsletter our own resident culinary genius, Wren, told us how she prepares another very economical cut, ham hock Alternatively, you can try Jamie's roast pork belly

You can learn more about pig welfare and the RSPCA's campaign on their website: Rooting for pigs!

Judy

Calf photo (c) Joe Napper 2009

Chicken photo (c) Simon Hodge 2009

Free range pig photo (c) Jilly Graham 2009

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