SEPRA News
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Supermarket monopoly
Those of you who receive this report by post will have seen the print on the label. This is to remind those members in the North that despite the snow, Wednesday was the first day of Spring !
We need a thriving and profitable farming industry to produce our food, to deliver the landscapes we value and to help meet our future energy needs, Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs told farmers. Speaking at the National Farmers' Union Conference 2006 in Birmingham this week, she outlined a number of measures and announcements which will help farmers and rural communities, working in partnership with government, to achieve this:
Margaret Beckett spoke to the English NFU this week and this is part of her presentation. There has been a lot of talk in the Press lately regarding the share of the Grocery market and also other goods, held by Supermarkets. Also their alleged poor returns to farmer producers.
This part will be of interest to all those producing foods in UK.
“Relatively few farmers are direct suppliers to supermarkets, but many farmers have concerns about how supermarkets treat their suppliers. And there is no denying the influence that the supermarkets exercise over the entire supply chain. The Office of Fair Trading is currently considering afresh whether to refer the grocery market to the Competition Commission for their investigation. But the great bulk of food in this country is sold by supermarkets, and I don’t think that anyone in this room expects that to change in the coming years. So it is imperative that we achieve a more constructive working relationship between the farming industry and the supermarkets, with each better understanding the other’s needs. This is a recurring theme in my Department’s contacts with the supermarkets. It must be the right way forward and should yield results.
I know for example from talking to Sir Terry Leahy that Tesco now has plans to boost fresh British food and farming by celebrating the provenance of our food – our regions, our counties, even in some cases individual farms, and that they are combining this with a commitment to stating clearly the countries of origin on fresh products sourced from outside the UK. They express keenness to work with the NFU and Defra on new ways to bring value to British food and farming products so that they achieve the premiums that producers need, and move more farmers away from a reliance on basic commodity production. As Government we too are key consumers of your products.
Our Public Sector Food Procurement Initiative aims to
increase the opportunities for small and local suppliers to compete to
supply the public sector – a market worth around £1.8 billion in England. “
Whether you as egg producers can hang your hat on this offer from TESCO will no doubt depend on what you have to offer ? I would expect something with a new look to eggs ? White eggs with a blue saltire printed. You will have to have something different. Certainly the eggs, which TESCO market today, are acceptable to their public and why should they change?
Avian flu
As you know I attended an Avian Influenza Stakeholder Meeting in Edinburgh on Monday. This was a follow-up to the February 2nd meeting.
The meeting opened with an explanation from the Chief Vet Charles Milne, who was just back from holiday and was perhaps a wee bit behind with some of the news ?
He told us that over 4,000 dead birds, ducks, swans and the likes had been examined and only 3 had been found to be positive for the low pathogen virus. None had shown up with H5N1.
It would appear that the public are most concerned about bird flu and those on the panel told of a great many enquiries emanating from the public. The Help line had been unable to cope with the number of calls.
The most concern was expressed by members of the broiler industry who have seen sales drop dramatically. Not only because the public have stopped buying Scots chicken but because of cheap imports from Italy, France and other EU countries who are suffering worse than the UK with a much more poorer demand.
The Chairman, Iain Anderson, could not or would not answer a question from the floor regarding a possible ban on imports from France.
The next day, Tuesday, I found that next week sees an import into Scotland of pheasant eggs and chicks, plus ducklings all from France ! I immediately wrote to the S E expressing concern that we should endanger the Scottish egg and broiler industry by theses dangerous imports and as of yesterday I await their reply.
As it was said at the meeting if the boot had been on the other foot and A I was found in UK, then France would have banned UK imports right away ?
This piece I found on the Internet but it shows the reaction of another Government !
Eight Quebec poultry farms are under quarantine after they imported live ducks and eggs from France, the latest country to be hit with the deadly avian flu. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says the birds appear to be in good health and that it is unlikely they are infected.
The agency took samples to test for the H5N1 virus and results are expected within the next few days. The birds appear to be in good health, says agency official Dr. Doug Steadman.
Authorities are confident that they're not infected with the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus
The H5N1 strain is feared largely because it has, in rare cases, infected humans in close contact with infected birds, mostly in Southeast Asia.
Scientists are concerned the virus could mutate to pass from human to human and spark a human flu pandemic.
There have been 174 human cases of avian influenza in seven countries, 94 of them fatal, according to the World Health Organization.
Canada has banned all live
birds from France as well as poultry products that haven't undergone heat
processing.
One point which came up again at the meeting was regarding coverage by the media of the AI problem. At the February meeting John Campbell asked for some positive reaction from SEERAD, and this request was repeated this time by Steve Mitchell from Letham. It was admitted that official responses to some of the facts displayed by the media had been weak.
Even the COSLA representative present was concerned at the Press coverage and inaccurate reporting.
Some time was spent discussing vaccination of stocks.
Charles Milne told us that there was strong evidence that wild birds with high pathogen virus are spreading the disease.
To protect stock two injections would be required and the vaccination would take 30 days to become effective.
Once vaccinated it would not be possible to check if these birds, following a challenge, had become carriers of H5N1.
The Ministry held stocks of vaccine for zoo birds and have applied for more.
Vaccination of poultry workers in Scotland against human influenza, not their families, would take place in October with the present flu vaccine. This would only take place whether AI arrives in the UK or not. This vaccine does not protect against H5N1.
Free Range and Organic poultry flocks
If there is a threat of A I in the UK, flocks of free-range poultry will be allowed to be kept in side for up to 12 weeks. This arrangement has been cleared with Supermarkets who will continue to sell the eggs as free range. Discussions are ongoing with regard to Organic birds, though I see the Soil Association wanted to vaccinate all their flocks !
The SSPCA representative at the meeting asked regarding the welfare situation of birds kept in houses and he was assured that housing in Scotland was adequate for birds to be kept inside.
Following my calculations and the deaths in the UK of 5,000 per year from Influenza related diseases, The Times today have a page headed “ Britons far more likely to win the lottery than to contract avian flu “
Their calculation is based on the fact that the WHO tells of 14 human infections in China with a human population of 1.3 billion. That works out at one case per 93 million.
There have been 8 deaths in China, which is one death per 163 million.
The UK population is 60 million and the odds of dying from bird flu is NIL.
In the letter page of today’s Times there are 3 letters all regarding vaccination, the main one coming from The Soil Association.
I believe that overall the media are changing their views of Bird Flu. They have calmed down a bit
Sir David King, the Government’s Chief Scientist, said “ that the public health threat from the virus had been greatly exaggerated. It is very important to keep things in proportion and to make a distinction between the virus in birds and the virus in humans. “ He calculated that your chances of winning the lottery were one in fourteen, but the odds on catching bird flu are one in 100 million.
The latest ‘horror’ story carried by the Press is about a dead cat in Germany. I took this news off the Internet just to let you see what officials in Italy have to say !
Rome’s cats present no avian flu threat.
Cats in Lazio are not a threat to humans in the current avian flu outbreak, regional authorities have stressed. The reassurance was issued after a cat was found to have died of the H5N1 virus on the German island of Ruegen on 27 March. Rome is home to an estimated 300,000 cats, of which 180,000 are domestic pets and 120,000 live in colonies, according to the news agency ANSA. There is currently no evidence to connect any of the 174 cases of human infection in south east Asia and Turkey with contact with cats.
In Italy, 19 birds with the disease have so far been found in Puglia, Calabria, Sicily and Umbria. No cases have yet been diagnosed in Lazio, despite the recent discovery of a dead duck in the lake at Villa Pamphilij in Rome. In areas where cases of bird flu have been confirmed, the advice is to keep cats indoors and dogs on leads.
North East egg wholesaler fined
A Press Release from DEFRA records the conviction of an egg trader at Stockton-on-Tees who passed off eggs unfit for human consumption as barn and free range. Some of the eggs found appeared to be breeder-hatching eggs. It should be noted that though legal to place surplus hen breeder eggs onto the shell market they must comply with all the requirements of the Marketing Regulations.
It cost the egg trader £1,000 in fines and £6,000 costs.
Dennis Surgenor
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