As abattoir operators face up to the future of full cost recovery of meat inspection charges, and take whatever commercial decisions necessary to accommodate these massive cost hikes, one question looms large.
What happens when the money runs out? Trying to survive in a false economic world that the FSA has thrust upon industry will lead to an inevitable conclusion. Collapse. Similarities with the investment bankers and the Alice in Wonderland they lived are eerie.
What the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has done does not stand up to logic, reasoning or scientific fact; simply a modern day Government agency acting with naked self interest that uses daily law enforcement to procure tax revenue. I can’t think of any other working industry in the same boat. Also, years of ratcheting up legal powers seems to have made this agency untouchable. Even being found guilty of abusing the legal process in a recent Magistrates Court hearing hasn’t blunted FSA progress; you won’t find details of this particular court case in the FSA quarterly magazine, “Tec Files”, that’s for sure!
But what the British public needs to realise is where Government policy is taking us. Retailer strength and a lame-duck fresh meat industry will ensure that farmers will have to stump up the money for these FSA charge increases.
This can only lead to a further decline in livestock production that has already been happening for some years now. Costs and thus much higher fresh meat prices at consumer level will turn what were once staple dietary supplies into luxury items. Less and less households will buy meat. British meat will gradually disappear from supermarket shelves. Is it in the national interest to adopt such a strategy that will leave our island at the mercy of foreign supplies? Actual fresh meat shortages in the future are now more probable than possible.
The road map of British abattoirs is set to change dramatically. Which will survive? The big plants? The smaller ones? Who is best placed to deal with shrinking supplies? Can retail butchers do enough business to cope with a reduced market? Can big abattoirs get enough margin knowing that supermarkets will sell them down the river on price, although exports offer an alternative?
This is my last blog on this subject. Quite simply, there is nothing else that I can contribute. I do believe, though, that theses crazy, monopoly-money charges with all their falsehoods, and the sheer weight of bureaucratic demands foisted upon farmers and abattoir operators, will lead to some kind of collapse in fresh meat production that will result in shortages. Then, and only then, will economic reality force these legions of officials who have filled and continue to fill their boots living off productive backs from whence they came.
What collateral damage they leave behind, and who survives, remains to be seen.
Toby Baker