Farmers paid extra for 'cruel' exports

Britain's farmers are being paid 10p extra a kilo to send live lambs thousands of miles across Europe for slaughter.

The practice of live animal exports, blocked for more than a year because of the foot and mouth epidemic, resumed earlier this month despite fierce opposition from not only animal rights activists but also the Government's animal health minister.

Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) wants the trade banned on grounds of cruelty. The lambs, says a charity report, "packed with hundreds of others into severely overcrowded, swaying trucks... become increasingly exhausted, dehydrated and stressed as the journey wears on". Journey times can take anything up to 90 hours, alleges CIWF.

Elliot Morley, the minister responsible for animal welfare, said he would prefer the export of meat rather than live animals but admitted he is powerless to prevent it under European law. "I am unable to do any more than apply the rules, including those on journey and rest times, with vigour," he has said.

In the past, the live export trade has prompted violent demonstrations at Dover and other UK ports. The resumption of the business has been accompanied by a cloak-and-dagger operation that has kept sailing times from Dover secret.

Farmers are prepared to sell their animals for the live export trade again with the offer of an average of just £3 more for every lamb sold. That works out at just 10p more per kilo for "light" lambs – lambs that tend to come from British uplands and are smaller and thinner than those typically eaten in the UK.

But "light" lambs are popular on the Continent, particularly in southern European countries of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece – and that means lengthy trips to abattoirs in the heat of summer.

The Meat and Livestock Commission, the industry body, told The Independent on Sunday that "light" lambs are being sold for slaughter for 99p per kilo in the UK – an average of about £28 a lamb. But a Dutch importer is offering Welsh farmers an extra 10p – about £3 a lamb more – to take them across Europe.

The first consignment of lambs – 2,466 of them originating on Welsh hillside farms – were exported from Dover on a ferry bound for Moerdijk in the Netherlands on 15 July and later taken to France and Italy. There has been one further consignment since then but the trade will be stepped up next month when a British firm – Farmers' Ferry – resumes shipments.

David Owen, the head of Farmers' Ferry, predicted that half a million light lambs would be exported live over the coming months – compared with 760,000 exported in 2000 when the business was worth £31m.

The 10p mark-up may not sound like much, he said, but for Welsh hill farmers £3 extra a lamb "is a lot of money". For farmers selling 500 lambs that amounts to an extra £1,500. Many hill farmers earned as little as £2,000 last year, explained Mr Owen.

He said strict government regulations – such as length of journey times and an upper temperature limit of 30C – meant accusations of animal cruelty are ill-founded.

"If it is done properly, there is no problem at all," said a spokesman for the Meat and Livestock Commission. "There is an awful lot spoken about the horrors of transporting lambs... but as long as they are reasonably looked after and fed and watered overnight there really isn't a problem."

But Peter Stevenson, CIWF's policy director, said the enforcement of the law is "extremely poor", adding: "There is no excuse for the live export trade. It is immensely cruel. Their condition by the time they reach southern Europe is pitiful."

The charity points out the UK is a net importer of lamb and if supermarkets could persuade the British to develop a taste for light lamb – and then offer farmers a fair price – the trade would stop overnight.

Yvonne Burchill of Kent Action Against Live Exports, which monitors and tries to prevent shipments at Dover, said: "The long-distance transportation of animals should be looked at and stopped."