Collection fees give rise to outbreak of Canadian carcass dumping
The introduction of collection fees by dead stock removers in Ontario is thought to be behind a spate of illegal carcass dumping in the Canadian state.
Previously, the removers provided their service for free, as they were able to recover their costs by selling the remains to pet food producers and renderers. However, consumer worries over foot and mouth disease and BSE mean the pet food producers have increasingly looked elsewhere for their ingredients, with the result that carcass prices have all but collapsed.
Consequently, the collectors are now charging on average around $20 per animal. Rather than pay this, however, some farmers are now reported to be illegally dumping their unwanted carcasses in forests, giving rise to fears that local water supplies will be polluted.
When carcass collection charges were last introduced in Canada, on Prince Edward Island, farmers simply refused to pay up, causing the only collector in the province, Maritime Pet Foods, to shut down for a year. The business was only reopened after a number of farming associations and the provincial government took the step of subsidising the fee. Instead of introducing a similar fee, the Ontario government has joined with three provincial farming bodies to allocate $2.4 million to the struggling firms. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture, which represents more than 40,000 farmers, is also said to be looking at the construction of large 'communal' composters that farmers can use to get rid of their carcasses.
