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AWI Humane Slaughter report rates Ohio, Illinois over Indiana
 
By MATTHEW D. ERNST
Missouri Correspondent
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) issued a report  in April evaluating enforcement of the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, and calling for more state and federal resources to be allocated for enforcing humane livestock handling and slaughter.
 
The report evaluates federal- and s t a t e - inspected programs for livestock slaughter from 2010-15. Enforcement of humane slaughter standards is up but varies from state to state, according to AWI. The report evaluated both federal meat inspection and state-inspected processors of pigs, cattle and sheep.
 
There are 27 state-inspected meat inspection programs operating in cooperation with the USDA.
 
One focus of the report is the use of appropriate stunning devices and proper shot placement to render animals unconscious. “AWI has petitioned the USDA to require regular testing and maintenance of equipment and the availability of backup stunning devices in the federal humane slaughter regulations,” said Dena Jones, AWI director, Farm Animal Program.
 
“If these requirements were to be added to the federal regulations, they would apply to state-inspected (and custom) plants as well.”
 
The AWI petition was denied in February, with USDA holding it would approach the issue of maintaining backup stunning devices through voluntary measures rather than a mandate.
 
“The USDA invited AWI to resubmit our petition if their voluntary measures do not adequately address the problem. We will continue to request and review humane slaughter  violations to determine if the situation improves. If not, we’ll consider revisiting our petition,” said Jones.
 
The AWI report, which found a rise in federal actions related to enforcing the Humane Slaughter Act of 1978, also looked at state meat inspection programs.
  
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio are among the 27 states operating meat inspection programs in cooperation with USDA. Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee do not operate state programs.
 
The AWI assigned a grade to each state’s program, based on the USDA and state reports it was able to obtain by questionnaire and request. The AWI methodology looked at the number of noncompliance reports for humane handling and slaughter, suspensions issued and corrective actions taken in each state.
 
“Ohio and Illinois did quite well in our assessment,” said Jones. The report assigned Ohio a “B” grade, while Illinois received a B+.
 
“Illinois was probably the state which most consistently compiled with the federal humane handling and slaughter directives. It would have received an A except there were a few examples where an inadequate enforcement action was taken,” said Jones, in an email.
 
States with higher numbers of noncompliance reports and plant suspensions related to humane handling tended to receive higher grades according to the  AWI report methodology. That factored heavily in AWI assigning lower grades to Iowa (C+) and Indiana (D), where the AWI counted low rates of noncompliance reports for humane handling.
 
“In the 15 years AWI has been conducting our state enforcement survey,
 
Indiana has never reported a plant suspension or threatened suspension (referred to as a notice of intended enforcement) for egregious violations, and it has reported very few noncompliance records for less serious violations,” said Jones.
 
“All states have some plants that regularly do a good job on humane handling, and some who have problems now and then.” 
 
Denise Derrer, Indiana State Board of Animal Health public information director, said the AWI report’s methodology and assumptions were flawed and led to a poor measure of Indiana’s program.
 
“The AWI contends that a low number of noncompliance reports (NRs) and suspension warnings indicates poor quality or lacking inspection,” she said. “Our contention, here in Indiana, is that a  low number of NRs and an absence of suspension warnings is an indicator of a program that is working, and that our efforts to educate plant owners and maintain active inspection presence and work with them is actually accomplishing what we’re supposed to, which means fewer violations.”
 
The AWI report indicated humane slaughter enforcement is more uniform at federally inspected plants than at state plants, but that inspectors at state plants may have more time to address  violations. “In general, we believe that humane slaughter enforcement is better at federally-inspected plants, but that state-inspection programs are steadily improving,” said Jones.
 
The AWI report also stated that, nationally, “the turnover among these (state) plants is extremely high; few survive long-term.” That is especially the case with very small meat processors, according to the report, which cited a USDA study on plant tenure.
 
High turnover of state-inspected plants has not recently been the case in Indiana, said Derrer. “A lot of our plants are in the second- or third-generation or older,” she said.
 
She noted there has also recently been a rise in meat volume processed at Indiana’s state-inspected processors.
 
“We’ve had some growth in this  sector in Indiana, because of the local foods movement and farmers’ market popularity.”
 
One of the recommendations AWI makes in its report is to allocate more funding for humane slaughter enforcement at the state and federal levels. State programs are operated on a 50 percent cost share with USDA.
 
In Indiana, according to Derrer, those resources have recently been adequate to operate the state-inspected program. “We have been successful at operating within our budget that we have,” she said. “We have added inspectors the last few years.”
 
A copy of the AWI report is available at www.awi.org and a description of the Indiana state meat inspection program is at https://secure.in.gov/boah/2504.htm The USDA humane methods of animal  slaughter webpage may be accessed at www.fsis.usda.gov 
4/27/2017