Animal welfare is a crucial component to livestock production and needs to be adhered to from the beginning, right to the end of the agricultural value chain. This means that farmers should prioritise ethical slaughtering practices to comply with basic legislation.
In this episode, Jeremiah Jothams, executive director of operations at Basadi Agribusiness which specialises in poultry agro-processing, discusses key considerations when it comes to the ethical slaughtering of livestock.
Jothams explains that animal welfare encompasses the physical and mental state of the animal and that there needs to be humane treatment from the moment of birth to slaughter.
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Abiding to welfare legislation
“There’s what we call the ante-mortem inspection, where we basically inspect the animals before they are slaughtered to ensure that before we slaughter them, they [are not] showing any signs that they were not treated inhumanely.
“Because then the abattoir has a mandate according to the regulation, the Meat Safety Act, to be able to deny or to refuse the right to slaughter those animals if they have not been handled in a humane way during their rearing.”
In this episode, Jothams provides insight into welfare practices, conditions livestock should be kept in before slaughter, and why livestock should not be kept in transit for periods longer than four hours.
“When it comes to inspection at the abattoirs, what we regard as our Bible, the Meat Safety Act 40 of 2000, basically that’s one of the core regulations which governs how we process the meat from livestock to meat.”
He also touches on regulatory requirements for buildings and abattoirs according to the Meat Safety Act regulations.
In this episode, Jothams also discusses:
- Requirements for halal abattoirs;
- Machinery and equipment; and
- Slaughtering techniques.
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