On target :

Pigs & Poultry

NFU Scotland – fighting for your interests

• Representation
  • NFU Scotland protects producers’ interests through representation to Government and Brussels.
  • Our representation at QMS and the British Egg Industry Council makes sure that decisions take the views of Scottish producers into account.
  • We successfully campaigned for retention of current Levy Board VAT status and for levy funding to QMS not to be interrupted.
    
    
• Animal Health
  • We have worked closely with Government and the industry on Foot & Mouth Disease, Avian Influenza and Newcastle Disease.   We helped keep Members informed during FMD, AI and ND incidents and helped ensure that control measures were proportionate.   We provided accurate information to counter media hype.
  • We are working to maintain Government’s contribution to animal health and to avoid the shifting of further cost to industry..
    
    
• Fallen Stock
  •  NFUS successfully pressed for inclusion of the pig and poultry sectors within the fallen stock collection scheme.
    
    
• Welfare Legislation
  • NFUS campaigns for sensible interpretation of welfare legislation directed at the pigs, eggs and poultrymeat sectors.
  • We successfully negotiated changes to proposed pig welfare rules on provision of water to piglets, weaning at 21 days for all-in all-out systems and use of slat-friendly manipulative materials.
  • NFUS helped to achieve EU broiler welfare legislation appropriate for Scottish conditions.
    
    
• Regulation
  • We are working to minimise the burden of environmental regulation such as IPPC, NVZ and the Climate Change Levy.   NFUS negotiated an 80% rebate for pig and poultry producers from the CCL.  
  • NFUS pressure has gained reductions in PPC subsistence charges.   We are working to prevent smaller farms being brought under the Scheme.
  • We convinced the Scottish Executive to leave unchanged Scottish rules for identification of pigs, instead of moving to six digit officially assigned slap marks.
    
    
• Market Conditions
  • NFUS is pressing for fairer supermarket trading practices and prices to suppliers.   Our pressure won an OFT enquiry which concluded that an ombudsman is required.
  • We have gained political support to put pressure onto retailers to pay more in recognition of higher input costs.

April 2008

Download in a PDF format (You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader.  If you do not already have it on your computer, click here to download it for free).

Printer friendly version