New Horse Meat Regulations in the European Union

One of the major export markets for Australian horse meat is the European Union. People living in Italy, France, Belgium, etc, have eaten horse meat for a very long time, and as such have a pretty good understanding of the health risks to people eating horse meat that has not been monitored to rule out prohibited substances.

The European Union have now brought in standards that require countries exporting horse meat to the EU to comply with the following:

"Taking into consideration that in most cases horses are not specifically reared as food producing animals and usually end up in the food chain at the end of their productive lives, special attention needs to be given to the requirements of Council Directives 96/23/EC and 96/22/EC which should guarantee that the horses slaughtered are safe for human consumption. Notwithstanding third countries' existing obligations to implement a residue monitoring plan and submit this on an annual basis to the Commission services for approval, third countries are expected to implement the following measures for those equidae, meat from which is intended to be exported to the EU:

• Equine animals intended for food production should be identified and a system of identity verification should be established.
• In third countries where anabolic steroids are marketed for fattening purposes, there should either be a prohibition on the administration of anabolic steroids for growth promotion purposes to all equidae or there should be a separate system for equidae which may be slaughtered for export of equine meat to the EU. This would require that equidae intended for meat production for the EU would be identified and segregated from those equidae treated with anabolic steroids.
• Treatment records. The purpose of recording treatments of animals with veterinary medicinal products is to ensure that animals are not slaughtered within the withdrawal period of the medicine in question, thus providing guarantees that the EU Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) for the particular pharmacologically active substance is respected. In the EU stock farmers are required to keep medicines records. On that basis it is expected that treatments with veterinary medicinal products should be recorded on a document linked to and accompanying the identified animal when moving from one premise to another or to the slaughterhouse (food chain information).
• At the time of moving the animal to the slaughterhouse, the competent authority of the third country should be able to guarantee that the required withdrawal periods for veterinary medicinal products administered to the animal and recorded in the food chain information have been respected.
• The third-country exporting equine meat should set up a risk based programme for controls on the use of veterinary medicinal products and substances prohibited for use in the EU. The control programme should include regular inspections on holdings, collection centres and at slaughterhouses."

Also:

"Any horse in the EU treated with phenylbutazone must be excluded from the food chain and be signed out of the food chain in the equine passport."

Here is the link to the entire document on the EU's official website.

Put simply, all horses that are to be slaughtered for human consumption must be identified (microchipped) and their individual veterinary histories must follow them from owner to owner, and then finally to the abattoir. No anabolic steroids, no Phenylbutazone, indeed none of these commonly used products and medications. Measures to comply with this new system are to have been in place by the 31st July, 2010.

Currently, there is no system of registering horses in Australia, and definitely no system of tracking their veterinary histories. Here is a link to the European Union's horse passport system, in all its technical glory. Australia is a very long way from having that sort of system. So far in fact, that some of the products that exclude a horse from slaughter can be purchased by anyone over the counter, with no veterinarian required.

So what will happen now?

Will the two Belgian owned export abattoirs, one in South Australia and one in Queensland, simply sell more meat to markets outside of the EU? Japan for example? In which case, how long will it take for Japan to become dissatisfied with meat that the EU has deemed to be unsafe?

Will racehorse breeders who rely on getting rid of their horses in this way start keeping detailed records on each horse voluntarily, as part of a "split system"?

Will there be a demand for more brumbies to be slaughtered, instead of domesticated horses?

This is not impossible, as you will see here in the section of the above document from the EU that relates to brumbies:

"For equidae caught in the wild, the provisions as laid down for wild land mammals apply. These provisions foresee the submission of an annual residue monitoring plan which is restricted to the analysis of environmental contaminants (e.g. heavy metals). Countries so approved will be listed in the Annex to Commission Decision 2004/432/EC under the column entitled "Equine"."

It seems that in the most recent Annex to Commision Decision 2004/432/EC, Australia is listed as an approved country. See here for the document in question, 2010/327/EU, dated 10th June 2010. So brumby meat will not be affected by the new regulations.

These are interesting times indeed for the issue of horse slaughter for human consumption.

Your Questions Answered #3

This post is in response to a twitter exchange with someone asking for question suggestions for an interview with butcher Vince Garreffa.

My answers unfortunately don't fit into 140 characters or less, but I shall endeavour to keep them brief!

The Twitter exchange so far:

Them - Interviewing Vince from Mondo Butchers to clarify why he sells horse meat. What are some things you want me to ask?

Me @them - would love to know his thoughts on the rational argument against consuming Oz horse meat:http://tinyurl.com/292npx5 :)

Me @them - Oh, and I'm very interested in what screening/food safety procedures the govt made him follow, re: drugs in horses :)

Them - Interview with Vince from Mondo butchers will be posted on Youtube tonight. Was a real eye opener! some of the facts...

Them - Horse meat he sells has been approved by the RSPCA, yet Vince is banned from sellling horse burgers at the Truffle Fest on Saturday

Them - @DontEatAusHorse He has an extensive list of screening procedures at the same abattoir he gets his lamb, beef. Screened for steroids

Them - @DontEatAusHorse 60-70,000 horses are being shipped out of Oz to JAP, HOLL, GER, FRA, BEL for consumption...so why can't a butcher sell?

Firstly, I'm looking forward to the Youtube video. Hopefully you've been able to go into greater depth than the mainstream media has so far.

Regarding the RSPCA approval, has the RSPCA specifically looked into the slaughter of the horses at the abattoir he is using? I'm very interested to learn more about this, as there are no abattoirs in Western Australia specifically set up for horses. The only two horse abattoirs in Australia are the two Belgian owned export facilities in South Australia and Queensland. (To clarify - horse abattoirs are different to knackeries that slaughter horses for pet food, fertiliser, etc.)

The Truffle Festival decided to ask Vince not to sell horse meat at the festival because they were concerned about people protesting there. An understandable decision by the organisers, as they wish to hold a successful event, not one disrupted by protesters.

I would love to see the list of screening procedures. Glad to hear they were screened for steroids. I'm hoping they were screened for other things also, particularly Phenylbutazone. I understand that the limited scope of Twitter may have prevented you from listing further substances, so I look forward to seeing more in the Youtube video.

The well worn argument of "it's good enough for people overseas, so it's good enough for Aussies" would no doubt be quite valid if it were true. New food safety measures being brought in for the European Union on July 31st 2010 will exclude Australian horse meat from their dinner tables, because in the EU they have stringent health standards for tracing prohibited substances in the meat, something which Australia does not do.

You listed France, Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium among the countries importing Australian horse meat. They will all be affected by the new health standards for horse meat in the EU.

You can read about the European Union's standards for residues in horses from third countries in detail here.

I will post more from this document later, but here are some of the key requirements of third countries exporting horse meat to the EU that definitely impact on Australian exports:

"Equine animals intended for food production should be identified and a system of identity verification should be established.

Treatment records. The purpose of recording treatments of animals with veterinary medicinal products is to ensure that animals are not slaughtered within the withdrawal period of the medicine in question, thus providing guarantees that the EU Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) for the particular pharmacologically active substance is respected. In the EU stock farmers are required to keep medicines records. On that basis it is expected that treatments with veterinary medicinal products should be recorded on a document linked to and accompanying the identified animal when moving from one premise to another or to the slaughterhouse (food chain information)."

Currently in the EU:

"Any horse in the EU treated with phenylbutazone must be excluded from the food chain and be signed out of the food chain in the equine passport."

Australia has no system for registering horses, definitely no system for tracking medications given to horses, and Phenylbutazone is one of the most common drugs that is used here.

Australian horse meat is NOT "good enough" for people in Europe, who have been consuming horse meat for a very long time, and therefore know a bit more about the health risks. From this it is fairly easy to conclude that it is also NOT "good enough" for Australians.

The figure of 60-70,000 horses being exported is disturbingly large, and I'd be very interested to know the source of that figure. A study published in 2008 has the following to say about the number of horses slaughtered in Australia for export markets:

"The number of horses slaughtered has been estimated from data collected from Ramsay (1994) and has dropped from over 30,000 in the late 1990’s to the current levels of approximately 11,000 – 13,000 horses per annum."

Source - RSPCA knowledgebase report, Amanda Doughty 2008, from the School of Animal Studies and The Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics The University of Queensland, Gatton. The full report (thesis) is available in PDF format here (file size 1.26mb.)

Another figure that I've seen quoted is 40,000 horses per year. It is very difficult to accurate information on this. The government collects the figures, how about they start making them publicly available?

I hope that has covered everything. Sorry if it's a bit on the long side, but I believe it is important to be thorough!

Once again, I am happy to answer all questions, so keep them coming. Comment on the blog, or send me a tweet @donteataushorse

Your Questions Answered #2

I was asked the following questions on Twitter:

A few q's: If we implemented a drug-tracking system for horses, where would the funding come from? Gov or industry funded?

and if it were Gov funded, why should those who do not eat horse have to pay taxes so those that do eat it can?

To my knowledge, all proposals for systems of horse registration to date have required funding from horse owners through the charging of registration fees, as is the case for owners of dogs or even cars.

Estimates place the number of domesticated horses in Australia at about one million, but no-one knows for sure, because there is no registration system. As horses change owners more frequently than other companion animals, there would no doubt be fees required for transfer of ownership, as well as initial and perhaps yearly fees for simply registering a horse. A system keeping track of that many horses will require quite a number of government employees to maintain.

For a truly reliable system, all horses would need to be microchipped. Currently horses must be branded, however brands can be hard to read and difficult to trace. The requirement that horses be branded is not enforced, and as a result many horses remain unbranded.

To implant a microchip in a horse's neck requires a suitably qualified person, usually a vet. In my experience a standard visit from an equine vet costs more than $100, for travel, call out fee, examination of the horse, etc. The fee for implanting the microchip would be added to this. In the case of there being several horses on the property being seen at once, the basic charge for the visit may be spread between them, but if there is only one horse on a property, the "cost per horse" will clearly be higher.

The cost of microchipping would more than likely be covered by the horse owner, unless government funding could be secured.

It is very unlikely that the horse slaughter industry itself would provide any funding for such a system, seeing as they only bring in around $10 million a year from export.

As you can see there are many issues that need to be ironed out before a system could be implemented. Regarding taxpayers paying to regulate an industry they do not support... well I suppose that would be nothing new.