Interesting to read this week an article in the Farmers Guardian. Paul Cheale, a director of Cheale Meats, the country's largest cull sow slaughterer outlines that full cost recovery will cost his company an estimated £700K per year, but robustly argues the case for self-regulation that, if enacted, could bring this cost down to somewhere in the region of £200K, stating "there is no reason why inspection should not be on a risk-based system." Good, sound stuff, and indeed, this ought to be industry's logical goal. (It should be remembered that the 2006 EU regulations were intended to update the law through risk assessment and streamlined enforcement. This has not happened because of the unwillingness of entrenched enforcement bodies to give up established powers. In practice the regulations are even more of a burden).

Mr Cheale adds " Nothing enrages the slaughtering industry more than being told to pass costs onto the customer............................and any increase in costs is ultimately born by the producer." I can see where Mr Cheale is coming from, but if I was farmer reading this article, I would also be "enraged" if told that the any cost-increasing buck stops with me.

Mr Cheale added that "it was imperative the farming industry put its full weight behind averting a disaster in waiting." I totally concur, but to bring about a concerted response to the imminent crisis, with hopefully farmers and meat men speaking as one, any solid foundations for such a group will crumble if the debate revolves around the money.

Mr Cheale touched on risk assessment and I believe it is absolutely essential that any group, task force, or whatever, needs to put some meat -on-the-bones relating to this topic. We need to set out our stall to show that a scientific risk assessment of the full meat production and distribution chain shows that abattoirs are not all that important in terms of preventing food poisoning. There is a low risk of pathogenic bacteria in the animal herd and these can neither be identified nor eliminated during abattoir processes.

We need to win the scientific and technical battle. We have to have the nerve to dispute health regulations for what they are, and to go out to the British public and expose the waste and hypocrisy behind the current set up, to remove our tarnished health reputation.

Win this arguement, and there should be no reason why financial implications for all concerned shouldn't fall into place, but we would have to be prepared for a battle royal from powerful officials with arbitrary powers and secure careers, acting as self-righteous defenders of public health.

To win, we have to set out the battle grounds.

To succeed you have to try.

Toby Baker