Dead or alive?
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Live animal transport in Europe is threatened on all sides—by European law, animal welfare groups, and the sheer cost to the haulier of running the operation legally and humanely. Is the answer to slaughter locally and use reefers to transport carcasses to market?
Tlivestock hauliers can take some small consolation from the latest brouhaha over British beef. Trade in cattle more than six months old would not be affected— it has already been banned to stop the spread of BSE ("mad cow disease"). As for their traffic in calves—half a million a year—a German ban wouldn't hit it as hard as reefer operators' beef exports.
But hauliers who specialise in transporting live animals face a more chilling threat that could kill off their thriving international trade altogether and even curtail their work within the UK. Again it comes from Europe and will be spearheaded by Germany, but it has the backing of a growing alliance that wants to see an end to long-distance haulage of animals for slaughter.
In July the Germans take over the presidency of the Council of Ministers and they, with the Dutch and Danes, are expected to press for an absolute time limit on journeys from farm or market to abattoir, The 1991 directive allows operators to ferry animals for 24 hours: for longer journeys they have to say how and where the animals will be watered, fed and rested. As the Council discussed that directive it received a petition signed by more than two million people from throughout the EU calling for an absolute journey limit. European vets and animal welfare groups favour an 812 hour maximum. Last December the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly for an eight-hour limit.
OTHER PROBLEMS
Ironically, the Euro directive relaxed UK law, making life easier for livestock hauliers as animals no longer have to be fed, watered and rested for 10 hours near the Channel ports before being reloaded for the voyage to the Continent.
But the ending of dockside checks with the Single Market makes it easier to flout the rules, says Hampshire trading standards officer Chris Smith. Local authorities are not allowed to target international livestock hauliers, but routine random checks on trucks suggest a growing problems, he says.
Abuse is common, warns the RSPCA. Drivers are often under pressure to break the animal welfare and hours rules, says the society's Don Balfour. He has trailed hauliers from the UK to the Continent, cataloguing breaches of the law, but is frustrated at the small number of prosecutions taken by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) and county councils.
UK-based hauliers stress that a small minority is giving the trade a bad name, and they point a finger at foreign operators. Competition has increased since 1992, driving down rates, says William Armstrong of the Carlisle-based family business, Wm Armstrong (Longtown), which was founded in 1927. It operates all over the UK with 50 vehicles carrying sheep and pigs and about 10% of its business is international: "You'll always get a minority who are going to cut corners," he says. "But moving 30,000 sheep a week, you can't afford to get it wrong. A rig with specialist feeding and loading equipment costs £130,000, whereas cowboy operators will knock up a box in their backyard. The trade's public image, rates and the animals all suffer."
Armstrong turned down work from an exporter who expected the haulier to exceed weight and speed limits, not to mention the rules on animal welfare. "A French wagon is now doing that exact job," he says. Like all hauliers, Armstrong is loath to call for more regulation and feels trading standards officers' meddling can be unwarranted. But he says: "The people doing the job wrong are not being pulled up for it."
Something on which all sides agree— including the European Commission—is that enforcement on the Continent is too lax. Peter Francis of Swindon-based MFP International says his company has never had a consignment checked by a vet abroad.
When the RSPCA and its Dutch equivalent trailed 10 consignments of pigs from Holland the directive was flouted, says Don Balfour. Seven journeys exceeded 45 hours. One, to Sicily, took 57 hours.
Hampshire's Chris Smith gives another example. A Belgian driver ferrying cattle from Ireland via Portsmouth—and fined several thousand pounds—told Smith he had never been checked before in 20 years driving on the Continent. The absence of a route plan to support the export licence on loads originating outside the UK is further evidence of a failure in enforcement, he adds.
This is why the UK Government opposed an amendment to the directive that would have set travelling intervals according to animal species, and why it is not persuaded on the merits of an absolute journey limit, says the MAFF: "There's no point in coming up with something that's unenforceable."
HALF-HEARTED
The opposition accuses ministers of being half-hearted in their efforts on animal welfare. But Labour agriculture spokesman Elliot Morley says it is not just the welfare of livestock that is at stake. Jobs in UK abattoirs and meat processing plants are being exported along with the live animals. Transporting chilled carcasses is also more cost-effective and hauliers wouldn't lose out, although they would have to invest in more expensive reefer trailers, he says: "It doesn't make sense to drag live animals across continents simply to take them to a slaughterhouse."
Labour is not alone in arguing that the economics of exporting meat on the hoof rather than the hook are as shaky as a BSEinfected cow. "The economics are crazy," says John Day of Lincolnshire haulier Walter Day & Sons. He gives the example of a Scottish trader sending a truck with 350 lambs to France or Spain which could transport 900 carcasses. Day is concentrating on domestic business hauling pigs to East-Coast abattoirs: the company will not chase international work because the rates are too low.
Pressure group Compassion in World Farming wants a ban on live exports. This is a non-starter because it would be against the free trade guaranteed by the Treaty of Rome. In any case breeding stock will always need to be transported—but CWF would settle for an eight-hour journey limit which would allow most animals to be slaughtered at the nearest abattoir. More remote producers could get a derogation, it argues.
An unlikely alliance of welfare lobby groups and the meat industry is forming, claims CIAIF , and this is confirmed by the Federation of Fresh Meat Wholesalers which operates UK abattoirs. A spokesman dismisses the idea that Continental customers want their meat fresh or cut in their own style as "a bit of a red herring". New Zealand has proven the popularity of chilled lamb. The cruellest cut is that British animals are often passed off as local meat, especially in France, he says.
The huge trade in live animals makes it hard for UK meat processors to break into the Continental market with high-value produce, says Morley. He believes tougher enforcement and a time limit are inevitable, though it may not be as low as eight hours.
Such a limit would kill off the crossChannel trade, says Ben Maguire of the Road Haulage Association. It would also be unacceptable to UK abattoirs. The RHA would like the present law retained—Maguire hopes the southern states will resist the pressure for change, or perhaps the eight-hour limit will be traded off for something else.
Peter Francis cannot countenance such a short journey limit. While 15 hours might be bearable for the Swindon-based haulier, even French and Dutch hauliers who boast they cover Europe within 24 hours—would fight it, he says. The firm already trades in its own sheep and has considered diversifying. But, says Francis: "Our business revolves around live animals. It's what we know best" William Armstrong maintains that shipping live animals is cheaper. A lot of customers use everything fleece and eyeballs included—which would mean a separate load from the chilled meat. But he can see the day when animals will be killed in the nearest abattoir. His firm already runs three reefers following requests from customers. This may be the start of a trend but it will take a more determined stance in Europe to turn that it into a stampede. The worst scenario would be a well-meaning but Draconian directive whose loopholes or lax policing lets continental operators rustle the livestock trade on this side of the Channel.
7 by Eugene Silke