Viva! 8 York Court Wilder Street Bristol BS2 8QH Tel: 0117 944 1000 Fax: 0117 924 4646 email: media@viva.org.uk	9 December 1999 RSPCA set to Amalgamate With Factory Farmers   Note: on Dec 8 1999, the RSPCA voted for the negotiations with the meat industry to go ahead. A proposal is to be put before the Council of the RSPCA at its meeting on December 8 which may result in RSPCA Freedom Food inspectors giving a seal of approval to mainstream factory farm units. Many of these units will operate standards lower than those claimed by Freedom Food farms. The Council is being urged to accept the recommendation, not in the interests of animal welfare but of economy. RSPCA Freedom Food is currently in discussion with Assured British Meats to seek administrative amalgamation of the two schemes. The outcome could be that when RSPCA Freedom Food inspectors visit an intensive unit which falls below its own standards, rather than taking action to improve conditions for the animals, their report will simply result in a different certificate of approval being issued. The highly-controversial Freedom Food labelling scheme was launched five years ago and claims to set the highest animal welfare standards. In fact, these standards fall well below those of the Soil Association and are indistinguishable in many regards from the legal minimum requirements and the existing Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries & Food (MAFF) recommendations. Despite the use of the word ‘Freedom’, the scheme approves intensive, factory farm conditions. If the new proposal is approved, RSPCA inspectors may effectively work on behalf of both Freedom Food and Assured British Meats - and the poorer conditions it claims to abhor. “What we are witnessing is the final kiss of approval for a barbaric industry from the UK’s leading animal welfare organisation. The British public funds the RSPCA and this is not what they want their money used for,” says Juliet Gellatley, founder and director of Viva! “The setting up of Freedom Food deeply compromised the RSPCA and in our view has acted against the interests of farm animals. Its rhetoric about high welfare standards gives a clear message to consumers - factory farming is kind and acceptable. It isn’t! It is brutal and cruel and the RSPCA should be opposing it with all its might, not jumping into bed with those responsible.” The Freedom Food scheme itself is shrouded in secrecy and not even the RSPCA’s Council members are allowed to know the location of farms which have been given Freedom Food approval. This contrasts with the Soil Association which issues a public list of approved farms. The proposed amalgamation has come about as a result of European legislation and the proliferation of meat ‘assurance schemes’, all designed to persuade a sceptical public that British meat is both kind and healthy. Under European regulations, any organisation offering quality assurance schemes must eventually comply with procedural standards set out in EN45011. By integrating itself into the mainstream of the meat industry and allowing Assured British Meats to take over the administration of its Freedom Food scheme, the RSPCA is sacrificing independence for financial savings. “If this decision is taken, it will confirm what we have always believed - that Freedom Food is just another marketing scheme based on little more than rhetoric. That is certainly confirmed by the secret filming we have done in two Freedom Food approved units and the recent Channel Four TV documentary on so-called Freedom Food free range eggs. To encourage people to eat factory-farmed products is incomprehensible. It compromises animal welfare and poses one of the greatest threats to both human health and the environment”, concludes Ms Gellatley. This year has seen two damning reports on the growing health threats from antibiotic resistant bacteria - a direct result of factory farming (Soil Association -The Use and Misuse of Antibiotics in UK Agriculture - and GB Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food). A 1999 report by Klaus Topfer, director of UN Environment Programme (GEO-2000) revealed that many severe global environmental threats are due to intensive farming. And even the European meat industry has acknowledged the worrying global link between meat production, environmental degradation and impoverishment in the developing world (The European Meat Industry in the 1990s - Meat Production and the Environment). For further information, contact Tony Wardle or Juliet Gellatley on 0117 944 1000.