Day 089 - 15 Feb 95 - Page 17
1 things themselves.
2
3 Q. Can I take the contract farmer first and ask you a couple
4 of questions? Suppose on a hot day -- the sort of weather
5 we had last summer -- a contract farmer's employee had gone
6 off down the pub because he was thirsty and, as a result of
7 that, a whole lot of the stock had died or become ill
8 because of the temperature in the shed being too high; what
9 would the company do about that?
10 A. Well, the company take a very serious view of that kind
11 of situation. To avoid that happening we have produced a
12 "heat stress procedure", as we call it, which covers the
13 eventuality of hot weather right from the farm through the
14 transport operation to the arrival at the slaughterhouse
15 where there is a written procedure to cover all these
16 eventualities.
17
18 So, on the farm, for example, there would certainly be an
19 alarm system and the alarm system would automatically ring
20 a telephone. If there was a power cut, for example, we
21 have emergency generators on farms. We have at 23 degrees
22 Centigrade, people are required to take extra precautions
23 and on the farm this would be ventilation, providing extra
24 ventilation. In the transport operation, catching, we
25 actually have mobile fans that we take to houses which we
26 can set up for the catching operation. In the factory we
27 have a misting system and extra fans which are used to make
28 the birds comfortable during the arrival.
29
30 So, all of this, during the very hot weather of last year
31 (and our official veterinary surgeon in the plant could
32 confirm this) has actually virtually eliminated any heat
33 stress mortality. We actually had a letter from him
34 congratulating us on our performance.
35
36 Q. So, on the ground last year the system worked, in other
37 words?
38 A. It did, yes.
39
40 Q. If depends, it would seem from your description, to a large
41 extent on human efficiency?
42 A. That is correct.
43
44 Q. What if the human efficiency chain were broken by the man
45 that is down in the pub; what would you do to the
46 contractor?
47 A. Well, the contract farmers, we have the ability to
48 release them from that contract if they do not conform to
49 our standards, and we can remove them.
50
51 Q. What would happen to one of your employees that was at
52 fault and, as a consequence of whose fault, a number of
53 birds died of heat stress?
54 A. Well, if that was the case and it was the employee's
55 fault, I think it would be taken very seriously and
56 I expect they would probably be released from their
57 employment.
58
59 Q. Can I just take one other example: When the birds are
60 fully grown, I think 42 days for females and 52 for males,
