The announcement that the Food Standards Agency in England will make CCTV monitoring of livestock in abattoirs compulsory, sets a new statutory standard for meat processing.

In practice, however, it has been a reality for many businesses for some time.

Most large retailers and food service businesses, including large burger chains, had this as a requirement for doing business.

For smaller processors in England that don’t have access to these customers, they will now be obliged to install CCTV.

Plans across the UK

Also, animal welfare is a devolved matter in the UK and while Wales is contemplating a similar move, there are no plans in Scotland or Northern Ireland to do likewise.

In fact, most cattle in Northern Ireland are slaughtered by factories whose customers insist on CCTV and are already covered.

England, however, has a considerable number of smaller factories that service local markets and for these making CCTV compulsory will have an impact.

Benefit of CCTV

The benefit of having CCTV coverage of animals in the factory environment is debatable.

On one hand, it can legitimately be argued that if there is nothing to hide why would factories oppose?

That has been the approach of companies that have so far installed cameras, because that is what their customers wanted.

Where the issue could have unintended consequences is in how images or film might be used by others with a different agenda.

There are many for whom the only satisfactory form of animal welfare is to discourage eating meat completely and the keeping of farmed animals.

There is also the issue of intrusion in a factory business that in a different context could be described as voyeurism.

Keeping standards

The best guarantee of maintenance of animal welfare standards is the fact that treating animals poorly costs money.

If a factory was to abuse animals in processing it would be left with dark cutting beef which is severely penalised in the market place. It is the same for farmers.

Animals that aren’t treated properly simply don’t thrive to their full potential and the farmers would be financially penalised.

The greatest incentive for the highest animal welfare standards is that it is financially rewarding.

That said, it is easy to understand the attraction of factory animal welfare adherence being monitored.

The only issue is: where does it stop – should a pet owner also have CCTV so that a licensing authority can monitor that the pet is being well looked after?

Michael Gove

In England, DEFRA Secretary Michael Gove said that “as we prepare to leave the EU, these measures provide a further demonstration to consumers around the world that our food is produced to the very highest standards”.

It will be interesting to observe if this will become a condition of trade deals with countries like the USA or Brazil for access to the UK meat market after Brexit.

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CCTV to become compulsory at all slaughterhouses in England