Dena Jones | Food Safety News

Custom-exempt slaughter should not be expanded

Dena Jones — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 06:01:41 +0000

Custom-exempt slaughter is a little known practice that could expand in size and impact throughout the United States if pending legislation is approved by Congress — and that is almost certainly not a good thing. The “exempt” in custom-exempt means a slaughter operation is excused from continuous inspection, unlike federal- and state-inspected slaughter, where government officials must be on the premises of the establishment whenever slaughter is being conducted. With custom-exempt slaughter, inspectors need not be present, and, in fact, inspection typically occurs only once or twice per year. Custom slaughter operations are commonly thought of as the places hunters take game animal carcasses to be processed into meat. But, these operations also slaughter cattle, pigs, sheep and goats for anyone who wants the meat for themselves, their household, or non-paying guests. Because the meat is intended for personal use only, packages of custom processed beef, pork, lamb or goat must be labeled “NOT FOR SALE,” and the meat cannot be sold, traded, or given away. The rationale behind giving minimal oversight to the custom slaughter industry is that consumers of the meat are generally aware of its origins, and the food safety risk to the general public is low. But what of the animals being slaughtered at these establishments—where is the assurance that they are being handled and killed humanely? While custom-exempt operations are expected to comply with the federal humane slaughter law, no inspectors are present to ensure that they do so. The public may assume that very small slaughter operations, including those conducting custom slaughter, take better care of animals than large, highly mechanized slaughter facilities, but this is not the picture portrayed by state and federal slaughter inspection records. A case in point is Brooksville Meat Fabrication, a custom-exempt operation in Brooksville, Ken., that was formerly under federal inspection by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. During a six-month period in 2013, the USDA cited Brooksville at least 10 times for serious violations of humane handling and slaughter regulations. Almost all concerned the plant’s failure to accurately stun animals in order to render them insensible to pain before slaughter. Aware of Brooksville’s record, the Animal Welfare Institute, which monitors federal and state humane slaughter enforcement, urged the USDA to withdraw federal inspection from the plant. In November 2013, the USDA’s Enforcement and Litigation Division prepared a complaint to indefinitely suspend and permanently withdraw the grant of federal inspection from Brooksville Meat Fabrication, finding that the establishment was “unfit to engage in a business requiring Federal inspection under the FMIA (Federal Meat Inspection Act).” In March 2014, after the owner of Brooksville failed to file an answer to the complaint, a USDA administrative law judge signed the withdrawal order. Withdrawal of federal inspection that is based solely on humane slaughter infractions is extremely rare; in fact, the Brooksville withdrawal order is the first time the USDA is known to have taken this step. Brooksville Meat Fabrication continues to kill animals, however, as a licensed custom-exempt slaughter house. It seems illogical that an establishment deemed incompetent to slaughter animals under direct and continuous inspection would be allowed to slaughter animals under almost no supervision at all, but that is the law at present. Instead of taking action to close this obvious loophole, members of Congress are pushing legislation to expand the exemption to all meat sold within a state.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ken., introduced House Resolution 3187, which would expand custom-slaughter exemptions.

In July 2015, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ken., who is a producer of grass-fed beef himself,introduced the Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption (PRIME) Act, which would expand the custom slaughter exemption to cover the sale of the meat, as well. Specifically, the bill would allow meat that is prepared at a custom-exempt establishment to be sold to unsuspecting consumers at “restaurants, hotels, boarding houses, grocery stores or other establishments in the state that are involved in the preparation of meals served directly to consumers or offer meat and meat food products for sale directly to consumers in the state.” The fact that Massie represents the Kentucky congressional district that is home to Brooksville Meat Fabrication is probably no coincidence. In October 2013, after the Brooksville slaughter plant had been suspended for a fourth time for inhumane slaughter of animals, its owner complained to Massie about his treatment by the USDA. In response, Massie requested that the USDA extend every consideration to his constituent. Although Brooksville eventually lost its grant of federal inspection, Massie’s legislation would allow Brooksville to operate more or less as before, providing the meat produced is sold in-state. The PRIME Act was conceived as a solution to the loss of thousands of slaughter facilities throughout the United States during the past 20 years — the result of consolidation within the meat industry that has left many small farmers with few options for having their animals slaughtered locally. The lack of local slaughter capacity can create a financial hardship for small farmers and subjects the animals they raise to the stress of long-distance journeys. While there is a demonstrated need for additional slaughtering and processing alternatives for small farmers, there is also a need — aptly illustrated by the case of Brooksville Meat Fabrication — for continuous inspection of both the food safety and humane animal handling functions of meat production. About half of the states offer the option of state-inspected slaughter, which could provide a solution for some individual farmers or cooperatives. Another option that is receiving increased attention is USDA-inspected mobile slaughter, which can service dozens of small farmers in a particular geographic region. The public’s desire for alternative food choices presents the challenge of how to promote sustainable and higher-welfare farming while ensuring food safety and the humane treatment of animals at slaughter. Unfortunately the problem is unlikely to be resolved soon. In the meantime, Massie has said that if the PRIME Act does not pass during this congressional session, he plans to introduce the measure as an amendment to the next farm bill. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

Poultry Industry Misleads the Public About the Humaneness of Slaughter

Dena Jones — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 05:02:29 +0000

People are often shocked to learn how little government oversight exists surrounding the way animals are slaughtered in the United States.

There are only about 148 (full-time equivalent) humane slaughter inspectors for the 148 million cows, pigs and sheep slaughtered every year at federally inspected establishments, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). That’s the equivalent of just ONE humane slaughter inspector for every ONE MILLION animals. Shocking, indeed.

But as bad as the situation is for “livestock,” it is far, far worse — 200 times worse, in fact — for birds. USDA does not report time spent monitoring the treatment of birds at slaughter establishments, but my back-of-the-envelope calculation arrives at an estimation of ONE humane slaughter inspector for every TWO HUNDRED MILLION birds. And I was generous, assuming that every poultry plant monitors bird handling during every shift, which we are quite certain doesn’t happen.

Why is government oversight so much weaker for birds? Because birds, which represent 98 percent of animals killed for food (fish excluded), are not covered by the federal humane slaughter law. Last decade, undercover investigations at poultry slaughter plants exposed egregious, intentional animal cruelty. Under pressure by Congress and the public to do something, USDA published a notice encouraging the poultry industry to adhere to “Good Commercial Practices” (GCP) for bird handling. The operative word here is “encouraging” because compliance with these practices, which USDA defined as the poultry industry’s own minimal animal handling guidelines, is completely voluntary.

USDA has not codified these bird-handling requirements in regulation. As a result, poultry plants suffer no consequences from the abuse of birds — even when done intentionally. There are no fines, no slowing or stopping of the slaughter line, and no shutting down of a plant with egregious or repeated violations. The only form of animal suffering at slaughter covered by regulation is birds drowning in the scalding tank (birds should be dead before they are immersed in the tank, a procedure to facilitate feather removal). And even in those instances, a regulatory control action is not taken if a single bird is scalded to death; it requires multiple live birds entering the scald tank, signifying that the system “is out of control,” before something is done.

Monitoring of GCP is hit and miss at U.S. poultry plants. The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), with another advocacy organization, Farm Sanctuary, has been reviewing records related to USDA’s audits of GCP since its monitoring began nearly a decade ago. We found that inspectors produced no reports related to humane handling at about half of the nation’s 300 federally inspected plants in that span of time, during which 50 to 100 billion birds were slaughtered.

Even the most conscientious, well-meaning inspector can do very little when mishandling of birds occurs. Their only recourse is to prepare what is referred to as a “Memorandum of Interview” (MOI), which is basically just a reminder that the plant should not do whatever it was that the inspector caught them doing. Some plants are issued dozens of these MOIs in a year for abusive acts such as throwing live birds, burying live birds in piles of dead birds, allowing birds to freeze to death in their cages, or breaking birds’ legs by violently slamming them into shackles. In certain plants, these incidents occur again and again and will continue to occur until there are real consequences for this sort of behavior.

In January, an investigation by The Humane Society of the United States at a slaughter plant in Minnesota uncovered acts of animal cruelty, including workers throwing sick and injured birds against the wall or tossing them into the trash, and workers jabbing birds with metal hooks to remove them from their cages. Another recent investigation by the advocacy group Mercy for Animals (MFA) documented excessive use of force in shackling birds and the drowning of birds in the scald tank at a North Carolina slaughterhouse. Neither of these plants had a history of being written up by USDA.

The MFA investigation caught the attention of New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. In his op-ed, “To Kill a Chicken,” Kristof observed, pointing to the lack of federal rules to ensure humane slaughter of birds: “If you torture a single chicken and are caught, you’re likely to be arrested. If you scald thousands of chickens alive, you’re an industrialist who will be lauded for your acumen.”

The editorial board of USA Today has also weighed in, supporting greater protections for birds at slaughter. In its opposing view, the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association offered the specious claim that USDA inspectors “can take enforcement action for mistreatment if spotted,” and therefore more government regulation is not needed. It is simply not true that USDA inspectors can take enforcement action for mistreatment, other than multiple live birds entering the scald tank.

While the preferred solution is to cover birds under the humane slaughter law, a simpler (albeit less comprehensive) approach would be for USDA to regulate the handling of birds based on its authority to ensure the wholesomeness of poultry products. Then USDA inspectors could take regulatory control actions (such as shutting down a slaughter line) when serious violations are observed. A rulemaking petition requesting this change was submitted in December 2013, and since then more than 239,000 citizens have signed a Change.org petition to USDA encouraging it to grant the proposal.

But USDA tends not to require animal agriculture to do anything it does not want to do. Even though the poultry industry claims it already meets animal welfare standards, it does not support placing them in regulation. The industry likes the status quo just fine, answering any complaints of abusive treatment by claiming bird handling is overseen by USDA and deflecting blame and responsibility to the department. The industry gives the outward impression that humane handling is being regulated — well aware that it is not.

And so, the suffering of birds at slaughter continues.