Meat inspection laws for review to improve standards
Back from Atlanta Georgia, USA
Courtesy: USA Poultry and Egg Export Council
THE Veterinary Services Department of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) has begun work on recommendations towards the review of the Animal Diseases Act of 1961 to ensure that meat inspection in the country meets international best practices.
The Director of Veterinary Services, Dr Mark Hanson, told the Daily Graphic that a review of the law had become necessary to safeguard public health and safety.
According to him, while no law existed to regulate meat inspection in the country currently, the Animal Disease Act , a backbone of the Veterinary Service which was passed in 1961, was outdated.
He said a new meat inspection law would spell out clearly how slaughter houses should be like, who qualified to operate one and also ensure that animals were examined before being slaughtered to ensure public safety.
He said under the existing practice, such inspections were limited to imported meat products.
In the absence of strict regulations, it is common to see meat slaughtered in unhygienic conditions across the country, he said.
Dr Hanson said this could change if the law was reviewed and the Public Health Bill received presidential assent.
“Our law on meat inspection has not been updated since 1961. Under the present circumstance, meat hygiene is difficult to achieve,” he told the Daily Graphic on the fringes of a facility tour of the poultry industry in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States.
The tour of hatcheries, feed mills, poultry processing plants and supermarkets was organised by the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council (USAPEEC) to provide the platform for stakeholders in the poultry industry in Ghana to gain insight into the operations of the American poultry industry.
The tour took the delegation, which included officials of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture
(MoFA), the Ghana Poultry Farmers Association and selected journalists to the Tyson Processing Plant; Americold Storage Facilities, Fiedale Hatchery and Feed Mill and some supermarkets selling poultry products.
Dr Hanson, who was full of praise for the inspection regime in the US poultry industry, said a reviewed law in Ghana would promote public safety since meat hygiene started from the farm.
There is a widely held perception in Ghana and other parts of Africa that imported poultry products had kept too long in storage facilities in the US and other parts of the West.
But the Director of Technical Services of the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council (USAPEEC), Dr Mark Lobstein, who spoke to the Daily Graphic, maintained that the notion was not accurate.
He said frozen poultry products were still wholesome even a year after their expiration.
According to him, the general rule of thumb, which was not an international law but accepted, was that the expiration date of packaged poultry products was generally one year after the date of production.
He indicated that “It does not mean that the product is not good after a year. It is just to give us an idea about how old the product is.”
While imported poultry products have been part of Ghana’s meat industry for some years now, perceptions of the use of growth hormones in imported poultry from the US and the European Union abound.
Growth hormones are given to animals to make them gain weight faster, thus producing meat products at a faster rate. Growth hormones also increase milk production in animals.
But Dr Lobstein discredited the notion that commercial poultry farms in the United States injected chicks with growth hormones to speed up their growth.
“Hormones use is illegal in the United States; It is not allowed in the poultry industry,” he told the Daily Graphic .
He said recently, the US had to address similar concerns in Russia where the Russian public was led to believe that “we inject hormones into the left leg of the birds up to 14 times in their 50 days life cycle and we send those legs to Russia and keep the non-injected legs in the United States.”
“That is not true. Imagine an average poultry farm of about 25,000 birds. Imagine if you would have to pick each bird and give it an injection in just one leg and putting it down and repeating that 25,000 times and repeating that process in a couple of days. Imagine how labour intensive that will be and the cost. It is just not practical,” he said.
According to him, contrary to the notion, there was a concentration on genetics and nutrition which achieved more than what hormones could do even if they were legal.
“Genetically, we look for certain qualities and characteristics in animals. In the US, we prefer breast meat, so we try to target birds that can grow bigger breasts and as a result, we select those characteristics and through genetics we continue to produce those type of products.”
He continued: “Nutritionally, we have scientists that focus their attention on the availability of grains and how they convert the grain into muscle tissue—what we eat. Through those characteristics, we are able to achieve greater change much efficiently and at a lower cost.”
Courtesy: USA Poultry and Egg Export Council
THE Veterinary Services Department of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) has begun work on recommendations towards the review of the Animal Diseases Act of 1961 to ensure that meat inspection in the country meets international best practices.
The Director of Veterinary Services, Dr Mark Hanson, told the Daily Graphic that a review of the law had become necessary to safeguard public health and safety.
According to him, while no law existed to regulate meat inspection in the country currently, the Animal Disease Act , a backbone of the Veterinary Service which was passed in 1961, was outdated.
He said a new meat inspection law would spell out clearly how slaughter houses should be like, who qualified to operate one and also ensure that animals were examined before being slaughtered to ensure public safety.
He said under the existing practice, such inspections were limited to imported meat products.
In the absence of strict regulations, it is common to see meat slaughtered in unhygienic conditions across the country, he said.
Dr Hanson said this could change if the law was reviewed and the Public Health Bill received presidential assent.
“Our law on meat inspection has not been updated since 1961. Under the present circumstance, meat hygiene is difficult to achieve,” he told the Daily Graphic on the fringes of a facility tour of the poultry industry in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States.
The tour of hatcheries, feed mills, poultry processing plants and supermarkets was organised by the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council (USAPEEC) to provide the platform for stakeholders in the poultry industry in Ghana to gain insight into the operations of the American poultry industry.
The tour took the delegation, which included officials of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture
(MoFA), the Ghana Poultry Farmers Association and selected journalists to the Tyson Processing Plant; Americold Storage Facilities, Fiedale Hatchery and Feed Mill and some supermarkets selling poultry products.
Dr Hanson, who was full of praise for the inspection regime in the US poultry industry, said a reviewed law in Ghana would promote public safety since meat hygiene started from the farm.
There is a widely held perception in Ghana and other parts of Africa that imported poultry products had kept too long in storage facilities in the US and other parts of the West.
But the Director of Technical Services of the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council (USAPEEC), Dr Mark Lobstein, who spoke to the Daily Graphic, maintained that the notion was not accurate.
He said frozen poultry products were still wholesome even a year after their expiration.
According to him, the general rule of thumb, which was not an international law but accepted, was that the expiration date of packaged poultry products was generally one year after the date of production.
He indicated that “It does not mean that the product is not good after a year. It is just to give us an idea about how old the product is.”
While imported poultry products have been part of Ghana’s meat industry for some years now, perceptions of the use of growth hormones in imported poultry from the US and the European Union abound.
Growth hormones are given to animals to make them gain weight faster, thus producing meat products at a faster rate. Growth hormones also increase milk production in animals.
But Dr Lobstein discredited the notion that commercial poultry farms in the United States injected chicks with growth hormones to speed up their growth.
“Hormones use is illegal in the United States; It is not allowed in the poultry industry,” he told the Daily Graphic .
He said recently, the US had to address similar concerns in Russia where the Russian public was led to believe that “we inject hormones into the left leg of the birds up to 14 times in their 50 days life cycle and we send those legs to Russia and keep the non-injected legs in the United States.”
“That is not true. Imagine an average poultry farm of about 25,000 birds. Imagine if you would have to pick each bird and give it an injection in just one leg and putting it down and repeating that 25,000 times and repeating that process in a couple of days. Imagine how labour intensive that will be and the cost. It is just not practical,” he said.
According to him, contrary to the notion, there was a concentration on genetics and nutrition which achieved more than what hormones could do even if they were legal.
“Genetically, we look for certain qualities and characteristics in animals. In the US, we prefer breast meat, so we try to target birds that can grow bigger breasts and as a result, we select those characteristics and through genetics we continue to produce those type of products.”
He continued: “Nutritionally, we have scientists that focus their attention on the availability of grains and how they convert the grain into muscle tissue—what we eat. Through those characteristics, we are able to achieve greater change much efficiently and at a lower cost.”
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