Note of the first meeting of consumer representatives and membership organisations
with the CVO 5th September 2005
Present
Consumer organisations
Judy Brander and Patience Purdy, National Council of Women;
Jeanette Longfield, Sustain
Stella Nicholas, National Consumer’s Federation
Sue Payne, Vice Chair, Foodaware
Shirley Percy, National Federation of Women’s Institutes
Michelle Smyth, Which?
Advisory committee representatives
Sue Davies, Which? and Advisory Committee on the Microbiological
Safety of Food
Dorothy Craig, Chair, Veterinary Residues Committee
Susan Knox, Chair, Foodaware, and Veterinary Residues Committee
Diane MacRea, SEAC, England Implementation Group and Advisory Committee
on Animal Feedingstuffs
Jill Moss, DARC mrsa sub group
John Verrall, Veterinary Products Committee
Ann Davison, Consumer engagement project
Officials
Debby Reynolds, Chief Veterinary Officer and Director-General Animal
Health and Welfare
Alison Reeves, Project co-ordinator and Head of Rabies and Equine Division
Brian Bibby, Food chain marketing and competitiveness
Nigel Gibbens, Head of BSE Division
Frances Radcliffe, TSE testing unit
Kate Richards, SEAC Secretary
John Bourne, Head of Animal Welfare Division
David Pritchard, Senior Veterinary Consultant
Ian Aitken, Foot and Mouth Policy
Apologies
Dozie Azubike, Advisory Committee on Animal Feedingstuffs
Gilli Cliff, Livestock Register
Sue Dibb, National Consumer Council
Jenny Stratford, Hon Treasurer,Townswomen’s Guilds
National Association of Women’s Clubs, Women’s National Commission.
1. Introduction and welcome
The CVO introduced the project and explained her commitment to the public interest and to a policy of openness. Key aspects of the Animal Health and Welfare Strategy demanded consumer engagement and the CVO had therefore been delighted to set up the project.
2. Consumer engagement
Ann Davison agreed that consumer input would build up trust, especially if consumers could see they were having an influence. Government and consumers working together could achieve more balanced decision-making.
Proposals that could promote more consumer engagement
2.1 Defra AHWDG proposed to:
- pilot cover sheets to key consultations highlighting the main consumer issues.
- recognise the differences between groups of consumers and between their representative organisations.
- send duplicate copies of consultations to voluntary organisation representatives.
- initiate debates at strategic level, as on animal welfare.
- produce occasional draft texts suitable for newsletters.
- look at government policies on payment of travel expenses to invitees from voluntary organisations.
- circulate an email list of key officials, additional to Ann as general contact.
- have a regular meeting with consumers (whilst liaising with Food Chain Marketing division of Defra’s meetings).
- keep invitation list under review.
- organise a follow-up meeting solely on BSE.
- provide more information on the structure of decision-making.
- look at best practice in feeding back the results of consultations.
2.2 The consumer organisations agreed:
- to the value of consumer engagement in AHW.
- to descriptions of their organisations and contact details for use within Defra.
- to continue to help provide nominees for committees.
- to give thought to animal health and welfare prioritisation.
- some membership organisations would use the Foot and mouth draft article and the circulated paper on consumers and animal welfare to debate with their own mass memberships.
- some offered to disseminate information on vaccination in the case of a foot and mouth epidemic.
3 BSE
A summary of the Commission’s Roadmap had been circulated. The
UK had yet to formulate its reaction and would be pleased to hear consumer
views.
Consumers felt EU policy should:
- not focus on economic concerns
- reflect existing uncertainty and so remain precautionary
- remain very strict on the feed ban
- take account of threats to fish stocks
Above all the consumers stressed continuing precaution while the explanation for (admittedly reducing) new cases was lacking.
Defra agreed there must be balance between the economic facts of life and other issues. The close co-ordination with other member states regarding CJD cases was described. Defra also set out its understanding of the reasons for the small number of new BSE cases in cattle born after July 1996. The representatives were informed of the European Parliament report on fishmeal (rapporteur Stevenson) which discussed the ethical issues.
It was agreed that the extent of interest and concern warranted a separate meeting devoted to BSE.
4 Animal welfare/ poultry
Papers had been circulated on animal welfare in general and on the Commission’s proposals for poultry welfare in particular. The purpose of the discussion on animal welfare was to begin a longer term debate with consumer organisations and with their mass memberships, where possible, about consumer information, education and attitudes e.g. to cost. Animal welfare standards needed to be understood by consumers. Involvement of animal welfare organisations in any consumer debate was to be further considered.
Consumer representatives felt that consumers did care about welfare (e.g. a Which? survey of consumers revealed concern.) The problem was raising standards generally to best practice levels. There was a perception that quality and high welfare were linked. But research also showed that meat eaters did not want to think too much about how animals were treated, so raising standards could not be purely voluntary. Other points made by the consumer representatives were that consumers did not really know what assurance schemes stood for; that educating consumers was a huge marketing task and that achievements could be made at local level where consumers could identify the farm their meat comes from. Foodaware mentioned its supported for country of origin labelling.
5 Poultry welfare
Consumer representatives said better labelling was needed. They expressed
concern that decision-making in Brussels was unclear to them e.g. who
served on the committee which helped formulate the poultry welfare proposals,
who did they work for, did they have practical experience? In particular,
decisions on adequate space per chicken should be backed by expertise.
Defra replied that the current specification for the sizes of conventional
battery cages would remain in place until 2012, unless EU rules changed.
After 2012 only enriched cages which provided a perch, nest box, scratching
area and 175 sq cm of space would be allowed.
To determine such technical issues such as stocking densities of hens
in barns Defra spent £3.5m on welfare research of which £1m
went on hens.
The UK (David himself) was currently chairing the Veterinary Expert working
group dealing with the welfare of broilers. This group consisted of representatives
of member states many of whom had extensive experience of chicken husbandry,
welfare science and negotiation within the EU. Membership of the EU’s
Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare included academics.
It could be viewed on the Europa website. Defra had extensively consulted
at national level on the directive with the aim of including the best
scientific and practical advice.
6 Foot and mouth
Defra reported that the views of consumer organisations and others who
had expressed support for a vaccination policy back in 2001 had helped
inform UK and EU policy. More recently, support expressed by consumer
representatives, including on 24th June, had helped make a policy of vaccination
practicable by reassuring industry of the likely consumer response in
any outbreak. This consumer organisation position was expressed in general
terms on the Defra site.
As an extra step, some organisations were interested in agreeing a more
detailed statement on foot and mouth and in including information for
their mass memberships in their newsletters. Draft texts for both had
been circulated. Offers made by some organisations to use the membership
channels in the case of any outbreak were warmly welcomed by Defra.
Consumer representatives confirmed that they see no need for separate marketing of meat from vaccinated animals. Co-operation with Defra over foot and mouth was felt to be best practice and the organisations would like to see more joint initiatives like this.
The point was made that animal movements needed to be controlled with animal disease and welfare generally in mind. This might be discussed at a future meeting, including in the EU context.
7 Bovine TB
The public health threat from Mycobacterium bovis remained low due to pasteurisation of milk, the cattle testing programme and meat inspection at abattoirs, but Defra was not complacent. The emphasis was on keeping clean areas clean and achieving a sustained and steady reduction of TB in hotspot areas. A policy permitting badger culling to control bovine TB was not out of the question but only if shown to be cost effective, practicable, sustainable and humane. Vaccination for cattle or badgers is still a long term goal. Cattle movement had been proven an important risk and the aim was to introduce pre-movement testing as quickly as possible. Scotland was developing proposals for post-movement testing.
8 Avian ‘flu
There was great press interest in the potential for Avian ‘flu to come to wild and farmed birds in the UK via migration from Russia. Although the risk of was low, Defra was not complacent. It had stepped up work on surveillance, biosecurity and emergency preparedness and was monitoring the international situation closely. Defra was working with experts in this field, with experts in other EU member states as well as with industry representatives to share information and discuss issues of concern. Defra was also working with bird experts to assess the risk from migratory birds and the need for enhanced surveillance. Defra was determined to ensure that the UK response to current circumstances was appropriate and comprehensive. There was surveillance of migratory water fowl across the EU and the new EU proposals would add protective measures against low-pathogenic avian ‘flu.
The Food Standards Agency did not consider that the outbreak of avian
flu posed a food safety risk for UK consumers. The risk of catching the
disease in humans was from being in close contact with live poultry that
had the disease and not through eating poultry. There had been no reports
of people handling poultry meat getting infected. WHO advice was that
there was no health risk from well cooked poultry meat or from eggs.
The consumer representatives stressed the need for basic information explaining
the science.
9 Next meeting
It was agreed that the meeting and the consumer engagement agenda which lay behind it was a very useful pilot. The organisations did wish to engage more meaningfully, as with Foot and Mouth, and regular meetings on Animal Health and Welfare, with the next in December/ January, would be very welcome. The pattern would be detailed consideration of two issues followed by an update on hot topics.
Page last modified:
May 23, 2008