RECENT allegations of animal abuse at a Saskatchewan horse meat plant demonstrate the new realities facing prairie farmers and the agriculture industry today.
Animals’ Angels Canada and the Canadian Horse Defence Coalition released grisly images that they report were taken at a horse processing plant in Neudorf, Sask.
The group also accused the facility, Natural Valley Farms, of killing animals without proper stunning procedures.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency responded quickly and said its inspections showed the plant was complying with animal welfare and health regulations.
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CFIA inspectors are on-site at the plant every day, so it was not a case of plant operators carrying out a red carpet cleanup prior to the inspectors’ arrival.
As well, to ensure impartiality, the CFIA called in third party auditors to investigate. They found nothing amiss.
Animal welfare groups have a role to play in shining a flashlight into the darker areas of the animal trade. Nobody – not the public, not producers, not processors – wants to see animals abused or harmed.
All have an ethical duty to ensure animals used for food or kept for recreation or pets are properly cared for.
In addition, consumer backlash could bring long-term financial strife should negative images and reports give the industry a bad reputation. Meat quality problems caused by mishandling of the animals also have potential to tarnish the industry.
But animal welfare groups have an ethical imperative to behave responsibly, and with a few notable exceptions, most do not. Doubt has been cast on the authenticity of the video images from the Neudorf plant. There are questions about whether the images on the Animals’ Angels website were taken where the group says they were.
Animal welfare groups acting in the public interest would be wise to pay more attention to their reputations. If they wish to be taken seriously, they require credibility. To gain credibility, abuse reports must be supported by evidence.
A separate incident last week involving 100 starving horses seized from a farm near Andrew in northern Alberta also provides lessons for producers.
In addition to the abused living horses removed by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 27 dead horses, as well as dead rabbits and chickens were found on the farm.
Producers and others involved in agriculture are right to condemn such discoveries. They give agriculture a black eye and stoke the fires of the radical animal welfare cause. Such instances tend to paint all producers with the same black brush.
Producers and those genuinely concerned about animal welfare share many of the same goals.
It is conceivable that animal agriculture, animal welfare and consumer confidence in the food supply system can all be enhanced through the same principals: good farm practices and humane ethical behaviour.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Ken Zacharias collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.