British MPs have accused the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) of putting "the cart before the horse" by proposing to end the use of carbon dioxide (CO2) to stun pigs in abattoirs before commercially viable alternatives have been proven, Pig World reported.
On 26 October Defra opened a consultation on replacing high-concentration CO2 with alternatives such as argon or electrical stunning, with a preferred transition period of at most three years. The National Pig Association (NPA) has called that timetable "totally unworkable", and the abattoir sector has warned the policy could undermine UK food security. Food security minister Stephen Morgan was questioned on it on 27 October by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) committee.
Labour MP Josh Newbury said any change must rest on robust evidence. He quoted the Animal Welfare Committee report behind the policy, which says exposure to argon still causes vocalisations and sometimes escape attempts and that pigs take longer to lose consciousness. He also cited the EU PigStun trial of automated electrical stunning, in which one fifth of pigs showed signs of consciousness after being stunned and had to be stunned again. Newbury called for a full industry-led trial with independent oversight.
"You've published the consultation, but you're consulting on stuff that you haven't properly trialled. Is that not putting the cart before the horse?" asked committee chair Alistair Carmichael. The minister and Defra's farming director, Mike Rowe, could not say whether countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark were considering similar bans.
Conservative MP Charlie Dewhirst, formerly of the NPA, said the UK has readily available CO2, and asked where argon and nitrogen would be imported from, noting that Russia is a major producer of those gases. He said the pig sector already has 15,000 pigs backed up on farms this autumn, and that converting abattoirs that are running at full capacity within two or three years would leave too little slaughter capacity and create welfare problems on farms.
Morgan said the government had engaged with the industry before the consultation and urged people to respond to it. "My understanding is that the proposal would have significant improvements to pig welfare at the time of killing," he said, adding that Defra will host a pig industry summit on the problems facing the sector. The report was written by Alistair Driver.
Photo: A pig farm in East Devon, England, Lewis Clarke / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Pig World
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