Day 089 - 15 Feb 95 - Page 16
1 they are very caring people, usually of farming stock
2 themselves. They do really care for their animals, whether
3 they work for a big company or a small company.
4
5 Q. There are attached as appendices to your own statement --
6 there is no need to look at them now -- five documents
7 which in varying degrees -- we can all read so I am not
8 going to ask you to look at them -- relate to the training
9 of stockmen and to the performance of tasks with an eye to
10 animal welfare?
11 A. Yes.
12
13 Q. They cover a whole lot of other things, like human safety
14 and so on and so forth, and product quality. From your
15 experience of the industry, are such training programmes
16 and tasks or job descriptions common?
17 A. Yes. This kind of job description is a common and
18 valuable way of training people and showing anybody that
19 comes into the industry new exactly how to do the job.
20
21 Q. If one reads them, one finds, does one not, that that
22 covers the whole of the operation from hatchery right
23 through to slaughterhouse?
24 A. That is correct, yes.
25
26 Q. We can all readily understand that it is easy enough to put
27 something down on paper. The question I have is how
28 assiduous are you and your company in ensuring, so far as
29 you can, at least standards are maintained in practice?
30 A. Well, we have on our farms, for example, we have people
31 that we call area managers (who are really supervisors) who
32 are responsible for groups of farms, and it is part of
33 their duty to make sure that the people working on the farm
34 know how to do the jobs and are following the correct
35 procedures, and this is part of regular day-to-day
36 management practice.
37
38 Q. Are you confident in your position? This is your
39 responsibility, is it not?
40 A. I am confident that this happens.
41
42 Q. Do you yourself visit the farms and other places to see
43 that it is happening?
44 A. Yes, I certainly do and I can do spot checks as well as
45 announced visits.
46
47 Q. You mentioned "our farms". The question I should earlier
48 have asked you (and forgot) is, does Sun Valley own all the
49 birds that are hatched and then processed?
50 A. The birds are owned by Sun Valley, but we do have a
51 large number of contract farmers who are on contract to Sun
52 Valley who actually grow them and these are independent
53 farmers.
54
55 Q. What sort of supervision or monitoring do they get to
56 ensure compliance with your animal welfare requirements?
57 A. Exactly the same. We have -- our area managers cover
58 the contract growers in exactly the same way as they do the
59 company-owned farms, and this is unusual in industry.
60 Normally, contract farmers are just left to get on with
