Of Meat and Men

This past Thursday, the European Commission adopted a new proposal to improve humane treatment for animals at the time of slaughter.

Let’s just overlook the fact that they’re GOING TO BE SLAUGHTERED. Although the quote from the official is pretty bizarre:

Commissioner for Health, Androulla Vassiliou said: “As a society we have a duty of care to animals, which includes minimising distress and avoiding pain throughout the slaughtering process.”

Now, if I was going to be killed, I think I’d be pretty damn distressed. Nor would I feel like I was cared for, but that’s just me. As a side note, the slogan of the EU’s food safety department is “from the farm to the fork.”

But back to my original point: how exactly will one implement this proposal?

• Each slaughterhouse will have to appoint an Animal Welfare Officer who will be accountable for implementing the animal welfare measures… The proposal requires staff handling animals in slaughterhouses to possess a certificate of competence regarding the welfare aspects of their tasks. The certificate will be valid for a maximum of 5 years and submitted to independent examination by accredited bodies.
• The proposal requires manufacturers of stunning equipment to provide instructions for the use of their equipment, on how to monitor their efficiency and keep them in good working order.
• The proposal also aims at creating national centres of reference on animal welfare in order to provide technical support for officials working in slaughterhouses. Although there are some research centres in many Member States, the results of their work and their technical competence is not sufficiently available to official inspectors.

No mention of the cost of carrying out this new law.

With food prices rising around the world, did nobody think that forcing companies to hire additional workers (and pay for their training) might increase the price of the end product slightly, or that forcing countries to create new research centers (in some cases, duplicating existing ones) might inadvertently create another government agency spending citizens’ tax dollars?

I don’t have a huge problem with asking companies to provide instructions and make sure their products actually work, but I’m fairly certain the market could solve that problem quickly enough.