Treat livestock well and get good meat
Jan 02, 2009
THE festive season makes butchers happy; but cows suffer. It is 6:00pm and about 30 people are standing at the offloading spot at City Abattoir in Kampala. One truck after another is offloading cattle for slaughter. Each delivers about 23 cows on average,
By Ben Okiror
THE festive season makes butchers happy; but cows suffer. It is 6:00pm and about 30 people are standing at the offloading spot at City Abattoir in Kampala. One truck after another is offloading cattle for slaughter. Each delivers about 23 cows on average, which are reluctant to get off the trucks till traders force them out.
In one truck, one cow lies dead, with its tongue sticking out. There is a small, bloody cut around its throat, possibly the cause of its death.
Another seems too exhausted to move. Some mean guy twists its tail and it has to dart painfully, tumbling down the lorry, its legs giving way as soon as it is out. It collapses in a heap and lies about one metre away from the dead one as if uninterested in what is going on.
Nobody appears to care because there is a bull that has run amok and is foaming at the mouth. As if it has decided enough is enough, it occasionally dashes towards whoever it chooses. People scamper for safety each time it dashes in their direction.
It is a saddening sight. Of course the animals have not come to enjoy Christmas or New Year’s Day in the city, they have come to die so that humans can be happy.
But even before they die, they are being tortured by the cruel transportation, inhuman offloading and later, brutal handling till they breathe their last. It is totally vicious and unacceptable. These men must be hard hearted.
According to Dr. Berna Nakanwagi, a veterinary doctor at the Uganda Society for the Protection and Care of Animals (USPCA), the journey of grief for Ugandan animals starts right from the farm, through the market, en route to the slaughter house, where cruelty is a matter of course. In the process, many are starved, bruised, fractured and in the worst cases, killed. Animal welfare activists attribute this cruelty to the desire by traders to maximize profits.
“Commercialisation makes people forget to treat animals humanely,†she said. “It is fuelled by corruption because even when checkpoints exist, they overload, mistreat and transport animals badly.â€
Dr. Herbert Kwizera, an inspector at Uganda Meat Industries, said traders used to complain that veterinary doctors overcharge them for movement permits, so they have to overload to make profit. The ministry reduced the charges and started charging per truck instead of per animal but still, animals are overloaded or mixed (mature ones being transported together with smaller or younger ones).
Kwizera also said during the dry season, animals are weaker and cannot stand for long. Because of this, traders tie their horns and tails on the truck rails, a practice commonly known as kimansulo. “That is cruel; it is illegal,†Kwizera says.
“We are also disappointed,†he says. “The optimum number of animals per Fuso lorry (four-tonne truck) is 18 big animals or 23 small ones. Many of them go beyond that.â€
The basic problem stems from the long marketing chain.
It begins with the village middleman, who buys cows from the farmer and gathers them from different locations. Many are forced to move by hoof for long distances, without pasture or water.
The longer they move, the more they get stressed. Then comes a truck that is not designed to carry animals and they are loaded forcefully onto it. In transit, they often get bruises, fractures or even die. Some mix cattle with goats and the weak ones are trampled upon.
At offloading time, in spite of their paralysis due to the long transit they are not used to, they are often forced to jump.
When they delay to move, they are forced forward using crude methods like eye-poking, nose-pricking, tail bending or splashing hot water on them. All this is worsened by insensitive dealers, traders and transporters.
At abattoirs, animals are slaughtered in the presence of others, subjecting the living ones to trauma. Some may begin to shiver, fight or shed tears.
Raphael Omondi, the Community and Humane Education Manager at Africa’s regional office of the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), says before slaughter, an animal should be given water, allowed to rest, and kept away from seeing others being slaughtered. This he said, would leave the animal to relax.
Omondi pointed out that animals have a right to freedom from hunger and thirst, from fear and distress, from discomfort, pain, injury and disease and to behave naturally. He called for education against animal cruelty starting with children, saying it would go a long way in ensuring a more peaceful society.
In modern society, stunning of animals before slaughter is recommended. Stunning makes an animal unconscious and it can be slaughtered without feeling pain. One example of a stunning instrument is a captive bolt pistol. The captive bolt, when used to hit the forehead, renders the animal unconscious so that it doesn’t feel pain during slaughter. But Muslims, who traditionally slaughter animals in Ugandan abattoirs, oppose it.
Nakanwagi said Hassan Basajjabalaba, the owner of Uganda Meat Industries, sent some Muslim workers to Egypt to see how stunning is done there.
When they returned, some still believed that an animal dies when it is stunned. Muslims do not eat animals that have died without being slaughtered.
According to an Islamic website, www.islamonline.net, Muslim scholars disagree on whether pre-slaughter stunning is prohibited or not.
A Muslim World League and World Health Organisation meeting held in Jeddah in December 1985 agreed that “if it could be shown that stunning with electric shock enabled the animal to die peacefully, then it would be Islamically lawfulâ€.
On the other hand, those against stunning argue that the captive bolt sometimes causes brain injury, which would be similar to dying from a violent blow and the animal would then be classified as mawquza (beaten to death), which is prohibited in Islam.
Why treat animals humanely?
Nakanwagi says the fact that animals are sentient (able to express pain and emotion) is reason enough. But there are economic reasons too. A well handled animal, she says, gives you better meat quality. “Proper transportation will control animal disease, bruising, minimising weight losses, giving you better meat. It also prevents damage to hides and skins.â€
According to Dr. Ahimbisibwe Bariyanga, the veterinary officer for Kampala, subjecting an animal to stress makes the meat less tasty. The meat also goes bad faster.
Stress in an animal before slaughter changes the shelf-life of its meat because the glycogen (that is useful for the production of lactic acid) is overused. Lactic acid is important for post-slaughter (maintaining quality) because it fights bacteria that would otherwise attack the meat. A stressed animal overuses its glycogen. The less the lactic acid there is the less quality in colour and taste of the meat. “Meat from stressed animals will be dark, firm and dry; it shrinks and deteriorates quickly because it lacks lactic acid,†he says.
“A good animal that would otherwise fetch sh1m is reduced to about sh0.7m, which is a big loss. That is why animals should not be transported overnight so they may have enough time to rest - between 12 and 24 hours. This is to allow them to rebuild glycogen levels and facilitate thorough bleeding after slaughter.â€
Kwizera adds that everytime they inspect slaughtered animals, some carcasses have to be condemned and others are so bruised that some parts have to be trimmed off. “Everytime a bruised cow is trimmed, 3-5 kg is lost but if there is a fracture, we can condemn the whole limb as affected,†he says. “And whenever we trim off tissue, the grade is lowered because the quality deteriorates.â€
What is being done?
Dr William Olaho, the director for animal resources at the agriculture ministry, says guidelines for the transportation of animals have been given as well as specifications for truck fabrication. The problem is that only a few people have complied. Olaho says relevant laws have been reviewed, with offenders being charged a fine of sh2m or two years in jail.
Before that, the Animals (Prevention of Cruelty) Act stipulated a fine of not more than sh1,000 or a term not exceeding three months in jail. The Act is also being revised and changed into the Animal Welfare Act.
Olaho says the Government has established a resting place in Lukaya for animals coming from Mbarara and a checkpoint manned by the Police and a veterinary doctor, although compliance and enforcement are not effective.
The agriculture ministry has proposed the introduction of veterinary police as is the case in Botswana and Namibia, to enforce the laws. “URA has done well with its Special Revenue Police, who have had to exchange fire with smugglers where necessary.â€
Olaho says in spite of several discussions between Police, transporters and farmers, nothing has changed. Some officers, he says, issue movement permits for both big and small animals in the same truck while other permits are stolen and used due to laxity on the part of the Police.
The world veterinary body OIE carried out a review of Uganda’s veterinary services and recommended that veterinary doctors involved in disease and vector control, enforcement of regulations and standards be answerable to the centre (ministry) and no longer to the district. The ministry, Olaho says, is also establishing Export Zones in former government farms, where abattoirs will be built and no more need for the transportation of animals.
Nakanwagi says they have tried to involve various stakeholders, like the Police, veterinary doctors and Makerere University Faculty of Veterinary medicine. Their society, she says, has been funding animal checkpoints but now money has run out.
Recommendations
Nakanwagi called for the introduction of animal welfare and humane education in the curriculum. She says USPCA, through the education ministry, has visited primary and secondary schools teaching basic care of animals to children. So far, 60 schools have been visited. She also called for standardisation of animal transportation trucks. Abattoirs that do not meet a certain standard need to be closed.
Ahimbisibwe says they have brought to the attention of operators of abattoirs standards that were passed by Uganda National Bureau of Standards. These include animal routes and transportation, meat transportation, butchery and abattoir standards. But some of these do not care because they know nothing will happen to them if they do not meet the standards, due to corruption.
Kwizera calls for an increase in the number of veterinary staff and sensitisation of the public on animal welfare, right from the farm.
He also suggests that public places be established where impounded animals can be offloaded for sometime and allowed to rest as they graze after being transported for long.
He also appeals for the creation of organised livestock markets with shelters, feeding and watering facilities, where farmers can take animals for sale and abattoir people can go straight and buy. This will eliminate the middlemen.
He gives an example of the Kenya Meat Commission that collects animals from farms and takes them straight to the abattoirs. He also cites Tanzania where veterinary doctors are given powers of prosecution and are not just state witnesses.
Malpractices
against animals:
Overloading
Overworking of animals
Excessive lashing
Physical mutilation
Poor sanitation
Poor nutrition
Inadequate water
Poor medical care
Slaughter houses in Kampala
Uganda Meat Industries
City Abattoir
Kalerwe-Nsooba
Kalerwe-Kishit a
Wankulukuku
Wambizi (for pigs)
THE festive season makes butchers happy; but cows suffer. It is 6:00pm and about 30 people are standing at the offloading spot at City Abattoir in Kampala. One truck after another is offloading cattle for slaughter. Each delivers about 23 cows on average, which are reluctant to get off the trucks till traders force them out.
In one truck, one cow lies dead, with its tongue sticking out. There is a small, bloody cut around its throat, possibly the cause of its death.
Another seems too exhausted to move. Some mean guy twists its tail and it has to dart painfully, tumbling down the lorry, its legs giving way as soon as it is out. It collapses in a heap and lies about one metre away from the dead one as if uninterested in what is going on.
Nobody appears to care because there is a bull that has run amok and is foaming at the mouth. As if it has decided enough is enough, it occasionally dashes towards whoever it chooses. People scamper for safety each time it dashes in their direction.
It is a saddening sight. Of course the animals have not come to enjoy Christmas or New Year’s Day in the city, they have come to die so that humans can be happy.
But even before they die, they are being tortured by the cruel transportation, inhuman offloading and later, brutal handling till they breathe their last. It is totally vicious and unacceptable. These men must be hard hearted.
According to Dr. Berna Nakanwagi, a veterinary doctor at the Uganda Society for the Protection and Care of Animals (USPCA), the journey of grief for Ugandan animals starts right from the farm, through the market, en route to the slaughter house, where cruelty is a matter of course. In the process, many are starved, bruised, fractured and in the worst cases, killed. Animal welfare activists attribute this cruelty to the desire by traders to maximize profits.
“Commercialisation makes people forget to treat animals humanely,†she said. “It is fuelled by corruption because even when checkpoints exist, they overload, mistreat and transport animals badly.â€
Dr. Herbert Kwizera, an inspector at Uganda Meat Industries, said traders used to complain that veterinary doctors overcharge them for movement permits, so they have to overload to make profit. The ministry reduced the charges and started charging per truck instead of per animal but still, animals are overloaded or mixed (mature ones being transported together with smaller or younger ones).
Kwizera also said during the dry season, animals are weaker and cannot stand for long. Because of this, traders tie their horns and tails on the truck rails, a practice commonly known as kimansulo. “That is cruel; it is illegal,†Kwizera says.
“We are also disappointed,†he says. “The optimum number of animals per Fuso lorry (four-tonne truck) is 18 big animals or 23 small ones. Many of them go beyond that.â€
The basic problem stems from the long marketing chain.
It begins with the village middleman, who buys cows from the farmer and gathers them from different locations. Many are forced to move by hoof for long distances, without pasture or water.
The longer they move, the more they get stressed. Then comes a truck that is not designed to carry animals and they are loaded forcefully onto it. In transit, they often get bruises, fractures or even die. Some mix cattle with goats and the weak ones are trampled upon.
At offloading time, in spite of their paralysis due to the long transit they are not used to, they are often forced to jump.
When they delay to move, they are forced forward using crude methods like eye-poking, nose-pricking, tail bending or splashing hot water on them. All this is worsened by insensitive dealers, traders and transporters.
At abattoirs, animals are slaughtered in the presence of others, subjecting the living ones to trauma. Some may begin to shiver, fight or shed tears.
Raphael Omondi, the Community and Humane Education Manager at Africa’s regional office of the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), says before slaughter, an animal should be given water, allowed to rest, and kept away from seeing others being slaughtered. This he said, would leave the animal to relax.
Omondi pointed out that animals have a right to freedom from hunger and thirst, from fear and distress, from discomfort, pain, injury and disease and to behave naturally. He called for education against animal cruelty starting with children, saying it would go a long way in ensuring a more peaceful society.
In modern society, stunning of animals before slaughter is recommended. Stunning makes an animal unconscious and it can be slaughtered without feeling pain. One example of a stunning instrument is a captive bolt pistol. The captive bolt, when used to hit the forehead, renders the animal unconscious so that it doesn’t feel pain during slaughter. But Muslims, who traditionally slaughter animals in Ugandan abattoirs, oppose it.
Nakanwagi said Hassan Basajjabalaba, the owner of Uganda Meat Industries, sent some Muslim workers to Egypt to see how stunning is done there.
When they returned, some still believed that an animal dies when it is stunned. Muslims do not eat animals that have died without being slaughtered.
According to an Islamic website, www.islamonline.net, Muslim scholars disagree on whether pre-slaughter stunning is prohibited or not.
A Muslim World League and World Health Organisation meeting held in Jeddah in December 1985 agreed that “if it could be shown that stunning with electric shock enabled the animal to die peacefully, then it would be Islamically lawfulâ€.
On the other hand, those against stunning argue that the captive bolt sometimes causes brain injury, which would be similar to dying from a violent blow and the animal would then be classified as mawquza (beaten to death), which is prohibited in Islam.
Why treat animals humanely?
Nakanwagi says the fact that animals are sentient (able to express pain and emotion) is reason enough. But there are economic reasons too. A well handled animal, she says, gives you better meat quality. “Proper transportation will control animal disease, bruising, minimising weight losses, giving you better meat. It also prevents damage to hides and skins.â€
According to Dr. Ahimbisibwe Bariyanga, the veterinary officer for Kampala, subjecting an animal to stress makes the meat less tasty. The meat also goes bad faster.
Stress in an animal before slaughter changes the shelf-life of its meat because the glycogen (that is useful for the production of lactic acid) is overused. Lactic acid is important for post-slaughter (maintaining quality) because it fights bacteria that would otherwise attack the meat. A stressed animal overuses its glycogen. The less the lactic acid there is the less quality in colour and taste of the meat. “Meat from stressed animals will be dark, firm and dry; it shrinks and deteriorates quickly because it lacks lactic acid,†he says.
“A good animal that would otherwise fetch sh1m is reduced to about sh0.7m, which is a big loss. That is why animals should not be transported overnight so they may have enough time to rest - between 12 and 24 hours. This is to allow them to rebuild glycogen levels and facilitate thorough bleeding after slaughter.â€
Kwizera adds that everytime they inspect slaughtered animals, some carcasses have to be condemned and others are so bruised that some parts have to be trimmed off. “Everytime a bruised cow is trimmed, 3-5 kg is lost but if there is a fracture, we can condemn the whole limb as affected,†he says. “And whenever we trim off tissue, the grade is lowered because the quality deteriorates.â€
What is being done?
Dr William Olaho, the director for animal resources at the agriculture ministry, says guidelines for the transportation of animals have been given as well as specifications for truck fabrication. The problem is that only a few people have complied. Olaho says relevant laws have been reviewed, with offenders being charged a fine of sh2m or two years in jail.
Before that, the Animals (Prevention of Cruelty) Act stipulated a fine of not more than sh1,000 or a term not exceeding three months in jail. The Act is also being revised and changed into the Animal Welfare Act.
Olaho says the Government has established a resting place in Lukaya for animals coming from Mbarara and a checkpoint manned by the Police and a veterinary doctor, although compliance and enforcement are not effective.
The agriculture ministry has proposed the introduction of veterinary police as is the case in Botswana and Namibia, to enforce the laws. “URA has done well with its Special Revenue Police, who have had to exchange fire with smugglers where necessary.â€
Olaho says in spite of several discussions between Police, transporters and farmers, nothing has changed. Some officers, he says, issue movement permits for both big and small animals in the same truck while other permits are stolen and used due to laxity on the part of the Police.
The world veterinary body OIE carried out a review of Uganda’s veterinary services and recommended that veterinary doctors involved in disease and vector control, enforcement of regulations and standards be answerable to the centre (ministry) and no longer to the district. The ministry, Olaho says, is also establishing Export Zones in former government farms, where abattoirs will be built and no more need for the transportation of animals.
Nakanwagi says they have tried to involve various stakeholders, like the Police, veterinary doctors and Makerere University Faculty of Veterinary medicine. Their society, she says, has been funding animal checkpoints but now money has run out.
Recommendations
Nakanwagi called for the introduction of animal welfare and humane education in the curriculum. She says USPCA, through the education ministry, has visited primary and secondary schools teaching basic care of animals to children. So far, 60 schools have been visited. She also called for standardisation of animal transportation trucks. Abattoirs that do not meet a certain standard need to be closed.
Ahimbisibwe says they have brought to the attention of operators of abattoirs standards that were passed by Uganda National Bureau of Standards. These include animal routes and transportation, meat transportation, butchery and abattoir standards. But some of these do not care because they know nothing will happen to them if they do not meet the standards, due to corruption.
Kwizera calls for an increase in the number of veterinary staff and sensitisation of the public on animal welfare, right from the farm.
He also suggests that public places be established where impounded animals can be offloaded for sometime and allowed to rest as they graze after being transported for long.
He also appeals for the creation of organised livestock markets with shelters, feeding and watering facilities, where farmers can take animals for sale and abattoir people can go straight and buy. This will eliminate the middlemen.
He gives an example of the Kenya Meat Commission that collects animals from farms and takes them straight to the abattoirs. He also cites Tanzania where veterinary doctors are given powers of prosecution and are not just state witnesses.
Malpractices
against animals:
Slaughter houses in Kampala