The Role of FCI

4.2 Food Chain Information (FCI)

Epidemiological intelligence

Monitoring and surveillance programmes provide data on existence and relevant changes in disease prevalences and zoonotic agents in animals.

Epidemiological intelligence to be used for FCI includes any relevant baseline information and/or risk assessments available. The EU Directive 2003/99/EC on monitoring zoonoses and zoonotic agents at all points along the food chain became mandatory for all EU member states in June 2004. The exchange of relevant information is two-way, originating from each member state, having been digested by the EU and then distributed to relevant veterinarians and other public heath ofﬁcials in all EU member states. In addition to locally available epidemiological intelligence information, these EU-managed data will be very relevant for FCI purposes.

Farm animal management

Relevant information must be gathered from each farm supplying animals, enabling proper analysis of the risks presented by the livestock. Naturally, animals must be well managed to good standards of husbandry and welfare by competent stockmen. Farm production data must be analysed properly and cover a wide scope of livestock production practices, including the frequency of herd or ﬂock inspection, management and treatment of stock, surgical operations, dehorning and disbudding treatments, the management of neonate animals, the use of exposed grazing areas and dog control.

Environment and hygiene management

There must be on-farm systems to prevent pollution of the environment and potential re-cycling of hazards via the environment back to the animals. Naturally, this must involve detailed analysis of animal waste (slurry, dirty water, farmyard manure, etc.) storage, treatment and disposal. Methods and associated appropriate records for casualty stock disposal and isolation facilities for sick animals must be assessed. The cleanliness of stock at marketing should be known, as should methods and associated appropriate records for dog worming and sheep dip disposal. Overall farm biosecurity (e.g. movement of animals, people and vehicles, vermin) plays an important role in protecting public health.

Animal feed composition, storage and use

Animals must be fed appropriate feed which has been stored correctly.

Contaminants and residues in animal feeds can ultimately be found in meat derived from stock which has eaten contaminated feeds. Therefore, knowledge of feed suppliers, feed composition and declarations, feed

transport systems and whether the feeds have been examined for public health hazards must be obtained and analysed. Attention must be paid to the biosecurity of feeds stored on-farm, since pathogen-free feeds can become contaminated via contact with vermin, wild birds or insects if stored inappropriately on-farm.

Housing and handling facilities

Facilities must be adequate to provide safe housing, sufﬁcient for the handling of stock. The structure and size, lighting and electrical installations and cleaning routine should be considered.

Production parameters

Good production parameters (e.g. growth rate, feed conversion rate and similar) normally indicate general good health and welfare of the animals.

Farm quality assurance in the FCI context

Many quality assurance schemes operate in different countries. One example is the Assured British Meat (ABM) scheme, which will be used here. ABM has around 23,000 members producing cattle or sheep; around 75% of cattle and 60% of sheep slaughtered in the UK come from ABM- assured farms. ABM membership effectively is an ‘unwritten’ condition for success on the market, since large retailers will only purchase meat from abattoirs slaughtering animals from ABM-assured farms. In practice, the ABM scheme involves independent on-farm inspections (10% of inspections are unannounced). A negative inspection results in loss of certiﬁcation, which must be re-applied for. Naturally, the farm business stands the cost incurred.

The ABM scheme has numerous farm quality assurance standards, including (as at 2004):

● animal identiﬁcation and movement: 3 standards;

● farm management: 20 standards;

● management of the environment and hygiene: 8 standards;

● animal feed (composition, quality, storage): 9 standards;

● animal husbandry conditions: 10 standards; and

● medications and veterinary treatment: 12 standards.

These standards are available from the ABM scheme directly, or from their website, and are being continually updated.

Herd health plans

Herd health plans, and related data, are one of the most relevant considerations form the FCI perspective.

Medicines and veterinary treatment

Medicines and treatments, posing a risk from residues in edible tissues, must be administered in an appropriate manner and all relevant records kept. Medicines must be used appropriately, with proper respect of withdrawal periods and safe, environmentally friendly storage and disposal.

Operative aspects of the food chain information (FCI) system, in the context of meat inspection

Operative aspects of the FCI are still under development, with the main points being considered and approved from practical, regulatory and public health aspects. Operators must deliver the necessary FCI to the Ofﬁcial Veterinary Surgeon (OVS), preferably through an information technology (computer) system. The FCI should be received 24 h before anticipated delivery of the animals. This is necessary to avoid unnecessary transport of animals which would not otherwise be accepted for slaughter.

If FCI is not received from the holding or farm, the animals should not be accepted on the abattoir premises, so withholding of FCI will have serious consequences.

Exceptions to the standard provision of FCI may apply if appropriate data have already been provided through a recognized, validated and audited Farm Quality Assurance scheme. Some small farmers may not be able to provide appropriately detailed FCI: their position is currently under discussion. Any information relevant to public health must be relayed to the OVS at least 24 h before ante-mortem inspection, in addition to the FCI.

If no FCI is available the OVS must be informed; only the OVS can permit slaughter of animals without FCI. In such case, ﬁnal judgement on ﬁtness of the meat must be pending and the meat must be stored separately.

If FCI is available, but not provided sufﬁciently in advance (24 h), the animals must be killed separately, since the risks to public health they represent cannot be appropriately determined. If storage space is unavailable, meat slaughtered without suitable analysis of FCI could be even declared unﬁt for human consumption.

FCI should ﬂow not just from farm to abattoir, but also as feedback from abattoir back to the farm of animal origin. Post-mortem inspection data, as part of FCI, will provide very valuable information about animal health.

In addition, FCI can help to modernize meat inspection (refer to later chapters) in which public health hazards are controlled – but physical meat inspection handling (palpation, incision) is reduced so as to reduce microbial cross-contamination.

The following responsibilities are envisaged for those involved in FCI and subsequently modernized meat inspection:

1. Ofﬁcial Veterinary Surgeons

● use FCI to categorize animals according to the public health risk they pose;

● carry out ante-mortem inspection;

● assess animal welfare;

● supervise post-mortem inspection;

● assess and audit GHP- and HACCP-based systems within the abattoir;

● take samples as necessary for laboratory examination; and

● BSE/TSE controls (e.g. SRM).

2. OVS Auxiliaries (trained)

● Carry out post-mortem inspection in the presence of OVS (except in small or poultry abattoirs).

3. Abattoir staff (trained)

● Staff should have the same duties as OVS Auxiliaries, but only within entirely integrated systems (primarily pork or poultry).

4.3 Ante-mortem Inspection

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Introduction

This chapter outlines the process of pre-slaughter inspection and evaluation of animals presented for processing for human consumption.

The roles of the veterinarian at the pre-slaughter point include protecting the public from food-borne disease and zoonoses, protecting the slaughter staff from zoonoses, protecting animal health through surveillance for serious and Notifiable Disease, and also protecting animal welfare through monitoring transport conditions, ensuring fatigued animals are allowed sufficient rest, separating bulls from heifers, polled animals from horned animals, and taking appropriate action regarding injured and infirm animals. Ante-mortem inspection aims to sort animals into three broad categories: those that can progress to slaughter normally;

those that must be removed from the food chain; and those that need further, detailed post-mortem examination or require to be processed separately from the normal kill. The ante-mortem inspection should take into consideration information gathered from the holding of origin, as well as a visual assessment of the animal in motion and at rest during the 24 h period just prior to slaughter.

The ante-mortem inspection must be carried out under adequate natural or artificial light, and is an important part of the process involved in the production of wholesome, safe meat. As well as providing an assessment of the welfare status of the animal, it is an excellent opportunity for Notifiable Disease surveillance. However, its main aims are to gather clinical information which will assist in the final judgement of the resultant carcass, and to remove from the slaughterhall animals which should not be processed for human consumption. Ante-mortem inspection of the casualty animal often extends to clinical examination of the subject, in order to formulate a considered opinion on the fitness of that animal for human consumption. An animal that has been presented to the veterinarian already dead cannot be subjected to ante-mortem inspection, so cannot be processed for human consumption

Certain conditions, such as clinical tuberculosis, septicaemia or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), automatically render the carcass unﬁt for human consumption. If an animal exhibits clinical signs of any of these conditions, it will fail the ante-mortem inspection. Animals containing residues of pharmaceutical agents also may not enter the human food chain. When the veterinarian carries out the ante-mortem inspection, it is important to bear in mind the clinical history of the animal, and also the health status of the farm of origin. It is also important that the details of the inspection or examination are recorded and that these records

accompany the body to the abattoir, as they are very useful in the final judgement of the resultant carcass. If a body arrives at the abattoir with insufficient information to allow this final judgement, it may be rejected as high risk.

Another major consideration during the ante-mortem inspection is the issue of microbiological hazards. The major issue in the production of wholesome, safe meat at the present time is food-borne disease, caused by organisms such as Salmonella species, Campylobacterspecies, Listeria species and pathogenic and toxigenic strains of Escherichia coli. These organisms are carried asymptomatically in the intestines of livestock, and excreted in faeces. As animals age, they are more likely to have encountered these organisms, and as such, the prevalence in older stock is greater than in younger stock. Stress also increases the shedding of these organisms in the faeces, so a stressed animal, for example a casualty animal, is more likely to be shedding the organisms, and thus poses a high risk to its associated carcass, and to the carcasses of other animals processed at the same time as the carrier animal.

In order to protect the slaughterhall environment, and the carcasses therein, animals that are excessively dirty are not permitted to be processed for human consumption. The UK Meat Hygiene Service (MHS) uses a ﬁve-point system of scoring of livestock cleanliness, in which 1 is show-condition cleanliness, dry animal and 2 is a dry animal with small amounts of adherent bedding. Animals of scores 3, 4 and 5, with increasing dirtiness and wetness are rejected at ante-mortem inspection, and must be cleaned prior to being presented once more for ante-mortem inspection (Figs 4.1, 4.2).

Dalam dokumen V ETERINARY P UBLIC H EALTH I NTEGRATED F OOD S AFETYAND (Halaman 139-145)

4.2 Food Chain Information (FCI)

Further Reading

4.3 Ante-mortem Inspection

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Introduction