September 13, 2006

US pork producers against bans on slaughter of non-ambulatory hogs

The US National Pork Prodcucers Council (NPPC) is up in arms over proposed legislation to ban the slaughter of fatigued/non-ambulatory hogs.

According to Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) figures, up to 1 percent of these animals, numbering 800,000-900,000 become non-ambulatory from fatigue or injury during transport or shortly after unloading. Banning the slaughter and processing of these hogs would create disposal and supply problems, not to mention the economic costs to producers, the NPPC said.

The new legislation follows in the footsteps of a similar ban on downer cattle in December 2003, after mad cow disease was discovered in one such cattle.

Downers are cattle too sick or injured to move on their own.

According to USDA estimates in 2003, between 130,000 and 190,000 downed animals were sent to processing plants annually-about three quarters of whom are processed for human food. About 20,000 downers were tested that year, approximately 15 percent of the total sent to processing plants.

Even before the mad cow case, legislation such as the proposed Downed Animal Protection Act has sought to prevent the slaughter and processing of such animals.

The Act called for regulations addressing the humane treatment, handling, and disposition of non-ambulatory livestock, including the requirement that they be humanely euthanized and their bodies prohibited from entering the human food supply.

However, whether such an Act would be passed remains uncertain as the US Congress and Senate remains divided over the issue.

While excluding non-ambulatory, "high-risk" cattle from the food supply is appropriate due to mad cow disease, there has not been any scientific evidence that hogs can get the disease too, the NPPC said.

Furthermore, non-ambulatory or fatigued pigs are inspected by veterinarians before they are passed into the human food supply, the NPPC argued. Most of these pigs are not sick, but just tired. They recover with rest and are processed without affecting either food safety or meat quality, the NPPC said.