Day 077 - 25 Jan 95 - Page 48
1 Q. Do you know of any evidence to suggest that any of the
2 cattle which at any rate you use for your products for
3 McDonald's have any undesirably large amount of pesticide
4 residues in their meat?
5 A. No, they do not. The Ministry of Agriculture carries
6 out routine spot checks and their figures are available for
7 all hormones and drugs and they are very, very low and few
8 and far between. I mean, they are not measurable in the
9 case of the United Kingdom. As far as pesticides are
10 concerned in McDonald's meat, pesticides grow on arable
11 crops; they do not grow on grass and cattle eat grass.
12
13 Q. But do not cattle sometimes in the winter get fed arable
14 grain from arable crops?
15 A. Yes, but the grain, if you are thinking of barley fed
16 beef?
17
18 Q. Yes?
19 A. The grain per se has come from the ripe year of corn or
20 barley. The pesticide was put on the month previously into
21 the soil and by that time it has been absorbed and
22 dissipated.
23
24 Q. You have to forgive our ignorance; you cannot assume we are
25 all country people and we know what you are talking about.
26 Farmers do not spray mature or semi-mature crops with
27 pesticides?
28 A. No.
29
30 Q. Thank you. Now can we turn to the statement, please, of
31 Mr. North? Can you turn to the second page, please, where
32 he makes a reference, although it is misspelt, to your
33 company, do you see, just above paragraph 8? Do you have
34 any comment to make about paragraph 8? You have to say
35 I would be surprised if you did.
36 A. Paragraph 8, the one that begins "As regards
37 responsibility"?
38
39 Q. No, it should begin: "This unit was in a modern,
40 purpose-built" -- you may be looking at the wrong
41 statement.
42 A. I am sorry, sir.
43
44 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think are you looking at the first
45 statement and there is another behind it.
46 A. I turned to E.
47
48 MR. RAMPTON: Is there a second statement behind E?
49 A. Yes, there is. Now if I turn to paragraph 8?
50
51 Q. Turn to the second page in paragraph 8. Read that to
52 yourself, please.
53 A. Your question was, do I have any comment?
54
55 Q. Do you have any comment about paragraph 8?
56 A. It was not a portal frame building, but apart from that
57 it is quite all right.
58
59 Q. Do you agree with what he says?
60 A. Yes.
