Farmers urged to be more open on animal welfare

Public should be allowed to see more of farming methods, vet tells NFU.

Farmers must be more willing to let the public on to their farms to see the reality of contemporary farming practices - warts and all - if they are to persuade consumers that animals in the United Kingdom are reared humanely, a leading vet told f armers yesterday.

Professor John Webster's call came after William Waldegrave, the Minister for Agriculture, told nearly 1,000 delegates at the annual meeting of the National Farmers' Union in London that "where concern for higher standards of welfare for farm animals is backed by scientific research into animal physiology and behaviour, it should be met".

The minister said that while it was important to aspire to the highest possible standard of animal welfare, the veal trade was a legitimate trade within the law.

He added: "We have laws to protect animal welfare. We have laws to protect people legally at work. It is the same indivisible law in each case: in each case it must and will be upheld."

Professor Webster, head of Bristol University's veterinary school, later told delegates that the public was less and less aware of the realities of modern farming. He said farmers struggling with the animal rights lobby had to deal with the problem of public perception which was shaped by media-fed images of the farming industry.

Some farmers were insufficiently open about showing the public farming systems because they feared the consumer would not understand them. This was short-sighted, he said. Farmers would be better off being open about all their farming arrangements "wartsand all".

The animal welfare lobby was vocal but represented a minority. It was crucial to get children on to the farms before they were 13 and their "brains descended into their gonads", to educate them properly about the realities of farming life. Tom Sewell, a farmer from east Yorkshire, said one problem was that farmers did not have the the confidence to put their side of the argument across to the public.

Earlier, Mr Waldegrave said that if mob violence drove people out of legal businesses it would strike at the heart of law.

"Do not for one moment believe that the violent element involved in all this would stop with the improved welfare for calves or animals in transport: or indeed that some of them are much interested in animals at all," he told delegates. In the long run, the minister said, it made sense to send even more animals overseas as meat rather than livestock. At present, 80 per cent of British exports go as meat, 20 per cent as livestock.

He warned that in future other aspects of modern farming would come under public scrutiny and that the industry must be prepared for this, and predicted that the protests in Britain about veal would in due course spread to the Continent.

Mr Waldegrave said: "Alternative outlets to veal crates are being developed. Most farmers, in my experience, dislike the idea that their calves might end up in veal crates: the more British farming can develop alternatives, the better for the trust the industry needs to maintain with the public."

Later, Professor Webster told a seminar on animal welfare that the plight of veal crate-bred animals was worse than many welfare activists realised. Because of dietary deficiencies in fibre and iron, many calves suffered from anaemia and enteritis. In crates they could not find a comfortable sleeping position and were often deprived of sleep. They also moulted early and suffered from itching.

Several systems for rearing calves more humanely did exist and were currently being experimented with, Professor Webster said. One solution to the problem might be to redirect subsidies away from encouraging farmers to produce food towards encouraging them to be kinder to their animals.