Denmark and the Netherlands have it already. Now, Germany also wants to set up a state animal welfare license plate. What animals and consumers?
A large majority of Germans want to see on the cooling rack, whether it was the Schnitzel, which had become a pig in the barn, once well or not. 81 percent wanted that is why an animal welfare license plate, said Federal agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner at a press conference in Berlin. The consumer should not show that you are the issue of animal welfare in agriculture is only in surveys is important. The Germans would spend in a European comparison, little for good food, noted Klöckner critical – more for your phone and the Status-receipt as a tour champion.
From next year, 2020, the testify should be according to the plans of the Minister in the sausage and meat counters in the country, the products that carry a Label: These pigs lived better than others. For example, because a full-blown, 100-kilogram Pig had to not only live on three-quarters of a square meter, but in a one or even one and a half square meters large Bay.
The reality in the German pigsties is usually less appropriate to the species
13 criteria from the birth to the slaughter house
On Salamis or pulp packaging are printed now, not a few Label quality label. The difference to the state animal welfare label now but, according to the Minister, that is equal to 13 criteria – from the birth to be met to slaughter. This is unlike the attitude indicator, some of the supermarket chains. And The Label has three stages with increasing quality requirements. Concretely, this means, for example, The piglets stay for four, seven or 14 days in the case of the mother and can be suckled by her.
Or: the pigs less boring in the barn, you will get organic snacks material such as peat, compost or sawdust. Through more space and jobs, the animals of which are to be held, the tails of their neighbors eating each other, or even bite off. What may sound bizarre, is in the pig-breeding is a huge Problem. Because infections need to be treated with drugs. The usual Cut – in the jargon docking of tails should be avoided.
But it’s also about how it hours goes to the pigs in their past life. It may not be for 24 hours on a truck to the slaughter house, transported or only eight or four hours? The requirements to “battle speed”, and the height of the fatal electric shock.
Million-dollar advertising campaign to help launch a
A quantum leap for animal welfare, the Label promises to be. For one, it is not mandatory. On the other, the farmers will have to pay only once to meet the new conditions. That they get rid of their more expensive products, is the next challenge. Not all farmers and consumers will be able to afford or want.
For the start-up costs, the Minister promised the farmers money from the state. With a total of 70 million Euro to promote an advertising campaign to the consumer for the sausage from happier pigs.
10 to 12 Euro, it will become more expensive – and, indeed, the whole pig, estimates that the Christian Democrat Klöckner. You don’t want to interfere otherwise, in the price territory of the dealer and back, therefore, with price forecasts.
Many Critics
The Minister could also exacerbate just the legal minimum standards to be exceeded, with the new marking now. But Klöckner wants to know at present nothing. She talks about goal conflicts, the compromises required. So it should be for the farmers to tax, because they could not survive economically otherwise.
- The others take a different view – Greenpeace, for example. The NGO demonstrated around the press conference in front of the building of the Ministry in Berlin’s Wilhelmstrasse. It calls for stricter legal requirements for pig breeding and for mandatory labelling of meat.
- “The reason for this error is that the Minister continues on a voluntary basis,” said the German animal protection Association.
- The organic farming Association Bioland criticized, about 20,000 organic farmers already in the highest Standards of animal welfare practised, would be excluded by Klöckners marking system””.
- Klöckner-setting consumers “another PR stunt, instead of real improvements” to enforce, said the consumer organisation Foodwatch.
And Europe?
Preferably, Klöckner, would be a uniform European approach. As it calls, for example, to the left of the party. “But if I wait, it may take many years,” says Klöckner.
As a first step, says Federal agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner
The European market for pigs is very competitive. What has led to the farmers to produce more and cheaper.
The animal described probably mark the Minister as an important “gateway” and “compromise” and perhaps also as “an impetus on the European level”.
How the Label could look, Klöckner. This could also be because you want to be aware of wait and see. In the spring there will be a large retail chain is a own, new Label. The state Label needs to finally stand out and look different.