Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
However, any alterations to the existing systems must
be based on sound scientific principles of food hygiene
and not unduly influenced by political pressures from
interested parties either from within the meat industry
seeking short-term financial savings or from the
'inspection industry' seeking to defend their positions
and the status quo. Food safety is of paramount
importance.
EFSA has identified the role of the farm in safe food
production in all of their opinions on the 'public
health hazards to be covered by the inspection of
meat' and emphasised the importance of information
from the farm being transmitted to the decision-
makers at the slaughterhouse through
food chain
information
.
Food chain information
Within current EU legislation, food chain information is
the mechanism by which information is communicated
from the farm to the slaughterhouse. Prior to 2006,
information on poultry production was transferred via
production reports which performed a similar task. The
responsibility for securing this information lies with
the food business operator of the establishment, while
the official veterinarian uses it to inform ante-mortem
and post-mortem decisions.
Unfortunately, to date, the good intentions of the
regulation have largely not been achieved except for the
vertically integrated poultry producers and in pigs in a
few countries, for example, Denmark. The integrated
high-intensity pig and poultry farming systems often
employ their own on-farm veterinary team and can
provide detailed information about husbandry; veteri-
nary medicine use; the results of production sampling
schemes and testing, for example, for
Salmonella
;
morbidity and mortality figures; production figures per
group of livestock, for example, daily live weight gain;
etc. When linked to information relating to previous
ante-mortem and post-mortem findings, a meaningful
picture of the disease status, animal welfare and veteri-
nary medicine use of the production unit can be estab-
lished. This information forms the foundation on which
a risk-based inspection protocol can be built.
With less intensive or integrated pig and poultry
production and for cattle sheep and goats, food chain
information is received by the operator but is often so
lacking in detail or integrity as to be meaningless. It is
obviously in the short-term interests of the producer to
conceal problems on farm rather than to declare them
to the operator of the slaughterhouse who may reject
the animal or consignment. If there is no verification
through any form of farm audit in place, little real
information is available to inform ante-mortem deci-
sions. Farm audit or checks could be achieved through
farm quality assurance schemes, with third-party checks
or through 'herd health' programmes with involvement
of the producer's private veterinary practitioner both in
the provision of advice to inform the programme and in
the interpretation of the significance of the ante-mortem
and post-mortem information provided by the official
veterinarian at the slaughterhouse.
The holistic approach
These opinions emphasise that meat inspection is not
just about food safety although this is an important
aspect of its purpose. Following upon the bovine spongi-
form encephalopathy (BSE) crisis in 1996, the increase
in incidence of food poisoning and deaths due to vero-
toxigenic
E. coli
associated with beef, particularly
minced/ground beef, and the resultant loss in consumer
confidence in the safety of foods of animal origin, many
countries saw fit to transfer responsibility for meat
inspection from agricultural to health departments. This
inevitably resulted in a change in the focus of priorities
from the other purposes of meat inspection, that is, meat
quality, animal health, animal welfare and protection of
the environment, to concentrate on the appropriateness
of the current controls for food safety. While the focus of
government altered, it is significant that the general pub-
lic and consumer organisations did not perceive a need
for change but rather for current controls to be carried
out better and augmented.
integrated Food Safety Assurance
Farm to fork
The realisation that food safety was the responsibility of
everyone in the food chain, from farm to consumer, and
not just the processor, grew from a number of food safety
incidents where investigations highlighted that the con-
tamination incident occurred beyond the controls pre-
sent within the processing establishment. The importance
of the role of the primary producer, the farmer, in the
safety and quality of all foods of animal origin has come
to the fore. Feed contamination incidents in Europe,
such as with dioxin or arsenic, emphasise the important
role that the integrity of feed plays in food safety, partic-
ularly when unusual raw materials are used in an effort
to produce least cost rations. Globalisation presents its
own unique challenges for food safety with raw materials
being sourced worldwide, remote from the user and the
possibility of personal audit of the material's integrity at
point of origin. Globalisation also results in the rapid
dispersal of completed food products to widely distrib-
uted markets with technology permitting improved
'shelf life' for fresh or frozen product.
