THINKING SMALL FOR SAFER SLAUGHTER POLICY

Despite a decade of action, most animal slaughter in Vietnam remains high-risk for food safety and disease transmission. Evidence shows that wet markets, where animals – especially chickens and ducks – are slaughtered by small-scale slaughterers, are hotspots for disease emergence and spread. These diseases include those that spread from animals to people (zoonoses) such as avian influenza.

To minimise disease risk, policymakers in Vietnam have long been working to control slaughtering and trading practices. However, their efforts over the past 10 years have had limited impacts. Despite a policy focus on modernisation and industrialisation of slaughtering, wet markets remain popular and disease risk remains high.

Biological findings from the One Health Poultry Hub show that 30% of chickens at the small slaughter points found in markets tested positive for avian influenza type A. This compares with 8% testing positive for the virus in larger slaughterhouses. Avian influenza type A can spread to people, where it often causes only mild illness. However, it can mutate rapidly and is considered to have pandemic potential.

Further, Hub findings show that more than one in six chickens at slaughter points tested positive for Campylobacter jejuni, a bacteria that causes food poisoning in people, while no chickens tested positive for the bacteria in the large slaughterhouses.

Researchers in the One Health Poultry Hub wanted to know why years of policy efforts had led to limited change on the ground and so the persistence of high disease risk. Such insights would be essential understanding for considering the best way to move forward.

To answer the question, they analysed policy documents and conducted interviews with different kinds of slaughterers, from owners of large slaughter centres to people working in small-scale slaughterhouses, as well as people in school canteens, factory canteens and supermarkets, market vendors and individuals slaughtering chickens at a family level.

Behavioural challenges

The findings highlighted the significant challenges policymakers have faced as they sought to change slaughtering behaviours. Key among these were the following issues:

• Land rights. Large-scale slaughterhouse owners do not have guaranteed land usage rights. This discourages them from making long-term investments in slaughter facilities that could improve the practices and scale of slaughtering.
• Consumer preferences. Vietnamese consumers have a strong preference for coloured chickens. However, difficulties in obtaining adequate and stable supplies of these birds mean industrial slaughterhouses supply mainly white broilers.
• Trust. Vietnamese people tend to place their trust in the health of birds they have observed alive, also preferring to use such birds for religious purposes

These findings show the many and complex dynamics contributing to the persistence of small-scale slaughtering in Vietnam, a country where small-scale chicken farming predominates. There are more than 8 million chicken producers in Vietnam, but only 8,000 large scale farms (4,000+ birds). Chicken production provides extra support for vulnerable people, for example those who work in precarious industries, and wet markets remain vital for providing healthy and nutritious food to many. In addition, small-scale slaughtering offers important livelihood opportunities.

Policy change

The challenge therefore for Professor Vu Dinh Ton, Vietnam National Coordinator for the Poultry Hub, was to communicate findings showing that a more effective way to lowering disease risk might be directly counter to Vietnam’s current policy direction – and that a change of tack to focus more on making small-scale slaughter healthier should be considered by policymakers.

Through many years of work in the sector, Professor Ton was already well connected to officials from the Department of Animal Health (DAH) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), as well as members of the Animal Husbandry Association of Vietnam (AHAV) and communities of veterinarians across Vietnam.

Relationships with DAH in the field were strengthened during fieldwork undertaken in the north of the country, in Hanoi, Bac Ninh and Hai Duong provinces. They were furthered strengthened as a result of networking opportunities the Hub provided.

Sharing findings

When the Hub organised a multi-stakeholder workshop hosted by the Hub to share Hub findings, researchers invited DAH officials from the north as well as DAH officials from the north-central and central provinces of Ha Tinh and Hue, where the use of large-scale animal slaughterhouses has progressed much faster than in the northern provinces. The workshop provided the opportunity for experiences and ideas for ways forward to be exchanged, including discussions within DAH on improving the hygiene quality in slaughtering in Vietnam in general and in these provinces in particular.

The networking opportunities provided at that workshop also led directly to researchers being invited on study visits with DAH officials to  Ha Tinh and Hue. This enabled researchers to see at first hand the industrial slaughter centres there – which are acknowledged not to be working as well as envisaged – and further consolidated the relationships that allow for policy influencing.

Progress was further made when Professor Ton, was invited to participate in a workshop, ‘Existing shortcomings in policies for developing centralised and industrial slaughtering activities in livestock farming in Vietnam’, organised by AHAV in Hanoi. At this event, many participants spoke on the difficulties of developing industrial slaughterhouses and how most industrial slaughterhouses operate under capacity, with many having had to stop operating entirely.

Professor Ton spoke of the need to focus on improving hygiene and food safety in slaughtering premises rather than purely on developing slaughterhouses as an end goal. Hewas well received. Again, he shared research findings and policy insights – furthering efforts to contribute evidence-backed policy changes.

In summary, the Hub’s research and stakeholder engagement shifted the focus to small, rather than large, slaughterhouses. This had been an unpopular and neglected position to take as Vietnamese stakeholders had long emphasised the need to modernise, without asking why. With our research, we were able to stress the little appreciated yet important role of small-scale slaughterers, and how policymakers can support them to improve food safety and hygiene in Vietnam.

• Top image: chicken slaughtering in a wet market. Credit – Minh Khue/VNUA