Kerala - Kottayam   

Stress on quality control

By Our Staff Reporter

KOTTAYAM, MARCH 13. Speakers at a seminar on safe meat production organised by the Department of Animal Husbandry here on Friday have stressed the need for implementing strict quality control measures in the production of meat and meat products in the State.

The State consumes three lakh tonnes of meat annually and more than half the quantity came from neighbouring States. Within the State, the existing meat production, processing and distribution network was one of the most unscientific. With no quality control measures possible for the meat coming in from other States and an unscientific network inside, the State whose population is almost 85 per cent meat eaters, was in for a major calamity, the seminar said.

The recurring epidemics in other parts of Asia, Europe and the U.S. (the latest being the avian flue from South East Asia), it was high time we introduced scientific practices in meat production, it was pointed out. Anthrax, brucellosis, leptospirosis (not only through rats, but also through cow, goat and dog), rabies, tuberculosis, toxoplasmosis (through cats), hydatidosis cysticercosis and avian influenza had claimed many lives not only in other parts of the world, but also in the State, it was pointed out.

The present system of highly unscientific decentralised and disorganised system prevailing in the meat production had to be done away with immediately, the speakers said. The seminar stressed the need to construct scientific slaughterhouses under the aegis of block-level local self-administrations. It also emphasised the need to have meat, being sold, to have a mark of quality assurance and called upon those handling the product at the production and processing areas to wear gloves.

The Minister for Rural Development, C. F. Thomas, inaugurated the seminar.

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