Canadian Meat Council conference Producers, meat processors view increased livestock standards as burden
QUEBEC CITY — The livestock industry should see growing consumer animal welfare demands as an opportunity as well as a problem, says Agriculture Canada livestock researcher Al Schaefer from the Lacombe, Alta., research centre.
He told the Canadian Meat Council annual conference May 31 that consumer and retail industry demands for proof of animal welfare standards for their products is growing and will continue to grow.
For many producers and meat processors, this is just another regulatory burden on the industry.
Schaefer suggested it also should be seen as a positive since most producers and industry players already use humane animal raising and slaughter procedures and they could gain market advantage by advertising that fact.
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“There are opportunities here for the meat industry,” he told a somewhat skeptical CMC audience.
There could be a price premium that consumers would be willing to pay for products from animals certified to have been treated humanely.
Furthermore, animals not stressed before slaughter produce a more tender, less coloured cut than animals stressed by traumatic transportation or stressful treatment before slaughter.
“The science shows that reducing stress makes for a better product that can gain a better price,” said Schaefer. “And being able to credibly argue that the industry meets animal welfare standards would be a tremendous boost for the public relations of the industry and that can only help.”
He said livestock lobby groups and commodity boards should spend more resources and energy countering the critics by communicating the reality that animal welfare is at the core of the industry.
“Education and communications have been the missing link for some time.”
Schaefer made his remarks the day after the meat retail giant McDonald’s gave the North American pork industry a decade to get rid of swine stalls to provide product from gestation stall-free operations.
North American hog industry leaders said the corporate decision was misplaced and lacking in scientific validity. The National Pork Producers’ Council in the United States urged other major meat retailers not to follow suit.
Schaefer’s advice, while not mentioning the McDonald’s edict, was that the industry should not be so defensive, accept that this is an ongoing and irreversible trend and try to take advantage.
“The evidence is that if you manage your animals well, give them good nutrition and as little stress as possible, you will get a better product that will help your bottom line,” he said in a May 31 interview. “And improving the industry image on this issue would have clear benefits while simply reflecting what the industry is already doing.”
Canadian cruelty-to-animals legislation that dates from the 1890s should be updated for the good of the industry’s image, but new rules should be based on the science of animal stress and modern animal agriculture realities and not simply emotional responses, he said.
