Bleker lashes out at Schouten about cattle export

Henk Bleker, the chairman of Vee&Logistiek Nederland, is furious with Minister Carola Schouten (Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality). Schouten wants the transport time of livestock in Europe to be limited to 8 hours. That is currently 24 hours.

Schouten wants to introduce this measure to limit the inconvenience and discomfort of the animals as much as possible. She let this in a letter to Parliament know. The minister will try to get European support for the measure.

According to Schouten, the ideal situation is that the animals are slaughtered close to home and that the cuts are then transported. Enforcement on livestock transport is also being tightened up. In concrete terms, this means that warnings are issued less often and fines are handed out more quickly.

'Limiting exports'
Schouten has let you know not only the transportation of the slaughter animals, but also the transport of calves and breeding animals. Bleker reacted strongly to this. According to him, Schouten is completely wrong. "This limits the export of Dutch breeding heifers, which are highly sought after abroad and have a long career there. The bizarre thing is that these animals enter the slaughterhouse as calves and are therefore hung on the slaughter hook within 8 months."

Bleker continues: "The minister knows that the Dutch cow has to give birth to a calf every year in order to continue to give milk. This means that the calves that the farmer does not need to replace old cows have only 1 destination in this ill-considered plan. Because that's the slaughterhouse."

Transportation is comfortable
Nobody really needs to worry about the transport of heifers, says the chairman of Vee&Logistiek Nederland. "That goes 'comfort class', because the buyer wants to receive his breeding animals on the farm in top condition."

Anne-Jan Doorn

Anne Jan Doorn is an arable expert at Boerenbusiness. He writes about the various arable farming markets and also focuses on the land and energy market.

aj.doorn@boerenbusiness. Nl

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