Anyone wanna guess if this will make the price of meat go up? or will it go down because of all the under the table deals that I think will go on? - k
Farmers fear new slaughterhouse rules
By Tom Fletcher
Black Press
Nov 27 2006
With less than a year to go before new commercial meat inspection rules come into effect, small livestock operators around the province are either getting rid of their animals or expecting to do their sales under the table, NDP agriculture critic Corky Evans says.
The new regulations will require all meat to be slaughtered in a provincially licensed facility and inspected before it can be sold. Evans told an agriculture forum at last month�s Union of B.C. Municipalities convention that small producers are getting out of livestock production, and in some cases losing the only revenue they have to qualify their properties as farms for tax purposes.
�We estimate that there are 2,000 animals in the [Slocan] valley I live in that aren�t being raised this year because killing them would be against the law,� Evans said. �So that would be pigs, turkeys, cows, sheep.�
Colin Palmer, chair of the Powell River Regional District board, said he has seen the same thing on small farms in his area. Farmers are either getting out of livestock rearing or preparing to sell illegally.
�My local farmers are particularly concerned,� Palmer said. �About the only animal they can legally slaughter now, if they make a special arrangement, will be chickens. After that, they�re all in trouble.�
Agriculture Minister Pat Bell has already delayed the new inspection regulations by a year, so they come into effect in Sept. 30, 2007. The ministry also set up a $5 million fund to assist meat processors to either upgrade or build new facilities.
Bell said in an interview there are now 38 applications for the funding, and if all those facilities are completed they will provide most regions of B.C. with inspected slaughterhouse facilities within reach of farms.
�There has been the inherited right for years to sell off farm, direct to the consumer, and we just want to make sure it�s being done in a healthy way,� Bell said. �I think it�s premature to suggest that we�re going to drive the business underground, and that we�re not going to be sensitive to producers� needs.�
He said there are isolated areas such as Atlin and the Queen Charlotte Islands where a fixed facility isn�t practical, and the ministry is looking at providing a mobile abbatoir that can be brought in at regular intervals to serve the needs of local producers.
Evans said he doesn�t believe mobile facilities will be practical because of the water and waste disposal requirements of slaughterhouses.
Bell said one of the proposals is from a community coalition in the Slocan Valley, a group of local residents who want to get together to operate their own facility.
�I don�t think Corky or anyone else would want another Walkerton,� Bell said, referring to the Ontario water supply that was contaminated with E. coli bacteria from livestock in 2000, causing seven deaths and hundreds of illnesses.
Health Minister George Abbott told the legislature last year that B.C. is �lagging behind� the rest of the country in its meat inspections, and has recorded the highest number of harmful infections such as E. coli from meat products.
yandex.ru.[/email] We will duscuss terms. I can pay for High Yield Investment Program articles $3.