World meat industry news

This year, from September 1, in order to sell meat obtained from pigs, bulls or sheep grown in a private farmstead, you will have to use the services of a slaughterhouse, which threatens to increase the price of meat products in the markets or reduce farmers' incomes.

Thus, according to the order of the Ministry of Agriculture No. 269 dated April 22, new rules for slaughtering animals and conducting a veterinary and sanitary examination of meat were approved.

They come into force on September 1 and according to them, the meat of domestic animals can only be sold on the market if they were slaughtered in a specially equipped slaughterhouse. The meat of livestock slaughtered in the home (farm) farmstead is prohibited to be sold on the market.

The process itself becomes more difficult. Now the animals must be examined by a local veterinarian and issued an appropriate document. Further on, at the slaughterhouse, another veterinarian examines the cattle brought for slaughter. If any disease is found in one of them, the entire batch is quarantined. Animals found to have infectious diseases are to be slaughtered and disposed of.

What does the industry think about the introduction of new rules for slaughtering livestock

In addition, pre-slaughter time is established for all animals: 15 hours for cattle, sheep, goats, deer and camels, 10 hours for pigs, a day for horses, donkeys and mules, five hours for rabbits and nutria , up to 12 hours - for poultry.

The points of the order regarding the slaughter of poultry and the examination of these products come into force on March 1, 2023.

According to the rules, slaughter must be carried out by humane methods - not causing stress and suffering in animals. Then the meat products must undergo another veterinary medical examination.

The next pre-sale examination is carried out by a veterinarian directly on the market.

All these innovations do not apply to animals whose meat is not for sale, but for personal consumption.

Whose shoulders will bear the costs - the farmer or the buyer

On the one hand, control over the quality of meat products in urban markets is being strengthened. On the other hand, the need to transport livestock to the slaughterhouse, and not slaughter it in the backyard, increases the farmer's expenses - for transportation, the slaughter itself, veterinary research at the slaughterhouse itself; the pre-sale preparation time also increases - the animals must be kept at the slaughterhouse for ten or more hours before the process.

Today on the market a kilogram of pork costs 500-700 rubles, a kilogram of beef 600-700 rubles, lamb 700 rubles. Additional costs for slaughterhouse services, farmers can contribute to the price of meat products.

The journalist of "Bulletin" visited the meat pavilion of the city market to talk with meat traders about innovations.

Some sellers refused to give any comments, some of which were the first time they heard about the order of the Ministry of Agriculture. One of them, Olga, said that they were already taking the pigs to the slaughterhouse in the Komsomolsky settlement, located in the Kinelsky district.

Another farmer said: “If we have to transport meat through a slaughterhouse, this will significantly increase our costs. There is nowhere to increase the price of meat - the local population will not buy it. All this threatens that some of the owners will sell meat in the yards, bypassing the market.”

The administration of the Otradny city district told Vestnik that there were no livestock farms in the district, and an employee of the main department of the Kinel-Cherkassk regional station for combating animal diseases is conducting a veterinary and sanitary examination on the market.

However, besides, as in farms, the same pigs, albeit not on an industrial scale, are grown by the inhabitants of Otradnoye in the private sector, they also breed domestic animals and poultry in the villages nearby the city.

Aleksey Alexandrovich KANDALOV, head of the Kinel-Cherkassk Regional Station for Animal Disease Control, spoke about the problems that will arise on September 1 in connection with the entry into force of the order of the Ministry of Agriculture.

“This will hit the local population due to the fact that people were raising animals by September in order to sell meat and buy everything necessary for children to study in universities, schools and other educational institutions,” he said. “The resonance will be great, as many do not yet know about the new order.”

According to him, the nearest slaughterhouse is in the Krasnoyarsk region and there is another slaughterhouse in the Kinel region. And it is not yet known how much these enterprises will charge for services. And you will have to pay for loading and unloading, transport.

Who will pay the additional costs? The question remains as yet unanswered.

“According to a rough calculation, an individual entrepreneur or a person engaged in personal subsidiary farming will suffer a loss in income - about 40 percent, and the owner of the slaughterhouse will also have a decrease in income,” added Alexey Aleksandrovich. “Hope remains for federal subsidies. In the meantime, all these are prerequisites for a rise in the price of meat in the markets.”

The population is advised to give up pork

As Vestnik reported in issue 30, July 28, agricultural producers are offered to temporarily abandon pig breeding and switch to cattle and small cattle breeding as part of the fight against the spread of African swine fever in the Samara region. The goal is to wait for the natural disappearance of the virus of a dangerous disease.

The regional government offers state assistance (subsidy) to commodity producers to reimburse the costs of reorienting farms.

However, this is unlikely to solve the problem associated with the entry into force of the new slaughter standards - after all, large and small cattle will still have to be transported to specialized slaughterhouses.

There is no specialized slaughterhouse near Otradnoye. Farmers will have to transport domestic animals for slaughter tens of kilometers away.