Originally from: David
                        
As you all probably know I have always stuck my neck out in support of live exports – on the basis we are in the EU and if I farmed in Holland, Belgium or anywhere else in the EU, I could put my sheep on a lorry and (subject to regulations), I could legally take them to the best available market in the EU without the bother of border controls.

We established ages ago that it is OK with most people to bring animals from the surrounding Islands to the UK mainland for slaughter – indeed with the closure of local slaughterhouses that is exactly what has to happen now. We can then go a bit further and it also seems OK to bring animals from France to the UK for slaughter (because it is no further than bringing them from an off lying island).

But as soon as we talk about sending live animals on a boat for one hour to Calais – the balloon goes up and activists have lost their lives trying to stop lorries.

Anyway, on reading the letter below which concerns the image of farming, I am beginning to reconsider my approach to this matter – and NO I am NOT going to demonstrate with AR people!

The plain fact of the matter is that EU rules have got rid of local slaughter houses and there are now insufficient slaughter houses in the Uk to cope – so that issue MUST be addressed if we are to ban live exports.

The next issue to address is whether or not there is a market for the meat and how much of it went to the ritual slaughter people? I am sure there are some figures somewhere. Will these sadistic religions buy the meat even if slaughtered in the UK in compliance with their Religion? And do we really want to ritually slaughter thousands of our animals in this country – would the public stand for it? My thoughts are that ritual slaughter is a small percentage (but it exists) because the biggest market is in France. The French send their (less tasty) lamb onto Africa etc.

There are a lot of questions to be answered but I now firmly believe that the Government should support the establishment of an export trade in home slaughtered meat – with the aim of gradually reducing live exports. The Government is always happy to support trade deals when it come to selling jet fighters etc.

Meanwhile the Government has just denied farmers (again) their £42m monetary compensation. (Annually farmers are denied £300m by the Government of this subsidy which is designed by the EU to keep the playing field level). They do this on the basis that the UK has to contribute 82% and because subsidies are becoming publicly unacceptable due to Government spin. I would suggest that the public would support the establishment of slaughtered exports trade rather than live and the image of farming would be improved over night.

David

LIVE EXPORTS MUST END
 http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/footnmouth/lexports.html

The following letter published in the Scottish Farmer illustrates the damage which the live export trade is doing to the public image of farming. Farmers must avoid being portrayed as supporting, even by their silence, the live export market. Live exports must end. Of course, this means that farmers will need to be compensated for any loss of earnings. Their strategy must be to argue for new markets to be built upon the principles of Localisation and Food Sovereignty, http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/articles/root2.htmljust as they argue for financial compensation and subsidies to enable farming to move this way.

CONCERNS OVER LIVE EXPORTS
The Scottish Farmer
27 July 2002, p. 8.

Sir: On Monday, July 15, live lamb exports to Europe resumed from the port of Dover. It is now widely known among farmers and animal welfarists that a most uncertain fate awaits these poor animals in the slaughterhouses of some Mediterranean countries.

At the time of Muslim festivals, tens of thousands of sheep end up having their throats cut open then left to die, choking on their own blood. In France in particular, these acts are carried out openly, with no intervention by the authorities.

One would expect the most vociferous opponents of this horrific trade to be the "caring" farmers who bring these animals in to the world; the farmers who wept in front of the television cameras as their animals were being put down during the foot-and-mouth epidemic; the farmers who were, in some cases, paid hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation but could no longer afford to feed their dogs.

Strangely enough, this does not appear to be the case, as the NFU chief livestock adviser, Kevin Pearce, slammed animal welfare societies for calling for an end to live exports (The Scottish Farmer, 20.7.02). Mr Pierce suggested that the welfare lobby would serve its principles better if it targeted those EU member states with poor welfare records.

Here we have the National Farmers' Union admitting on the one hand, that farm animal welfare in some EU countries leaves something to be desired, on the other hand, they are sending their helpless animals into what can be conditions of appalling cruelty in the name of profit.

If there are farmers out there who feel that live exports should stop, the sooner they speak out the better. After all, they do their case, when appealing for public sympathy, no good whatsoever by keeping quiet.

John Williamson, Wyvis Croft, Heights of Fodderty, Strathpeffer.