May 3, 2007

 

UK poultry industry aims to continue environmentally friendly policies

 

 

Reducing over-regulation on environmental and climate change issues is key to assisting the poultry industry, food and environment minister Lord Rooker told the British Poultry Council (BPC) at its AGM and Annual Parliamentary Lunch.

 

Lord Rooker said the food industry is central to new policies on climate change and the environment and had an important role to play in climate change.

 

Climate change is going to create new markets for new products, he declared.

 

While consumers want cheaper food, they also want good animal welfare, good environmental practices and local jobs, he noted.

 

In addition, he praised the poultry industry for its excellent handling of the bird flu incident at Bernard Matthews turkey farm.

 

He said that the government and industry working together had managed to get the message across to the public that there were contingency plans in place to deal with outbreaks.

 

He added that the industry had to work in partnership with the government and the public had confidence in the biosecurity and surveillance controls.

 

The government is also looking into labelling policies, Lord Rooker said.

 

Citing cases where some retailers were labelling poultry as fresh, when it has been frozen and then thawed, he said steps had to be taken to ensure that the public is not being misled.

 

During a conference on environmental impact for members of the British Poultry Council during their annual meeting, Ted Wright, chairman of BPC, extolled the virtues of indoor poultry farming.

 

He said indoor poultry farming is one of the most sustainable means of meat production as it uses finite natural resources efficiently while generating low levels of pollution.

 

At the same time, poultry litter can be used for electricity generation, and it has substantially less global warming potential than other livestock.

 

Wright said that indoor livestock systems balance the need for affordable and nutritious meat and the need for environmental preservation.

 

He added that British poultry producers have reduced energy use by many times the targets set by Defra, the country's farm agency.

 

Wright also pointed out that the sector is already the most environmentally sustainable of all livestock sectors, and should qualify for the gold standard under any proposed environmental labeling rules.