Slaughter of organic fish

Subject: Slaughter of organic fish

Article 25(h) of Commission Regulation (EC) 710/2009 on organic aquaculture requires that ‘Slaughter techniques shall render fish immediately unconscious and insensible to pain’. The recent Commission report on the welfare of farmed fish at slaughter (COM(2018)0087) states that the relevant ‘system of controls...are complied with’, by referencing the overview report entitled ‘Implementation of the Rules on Finfish Aquaculture’ (DG(SANTE) 2015-7406 – MR), which finds this system of controls only to be ‘largely adequate’. Moreover, it reports only on visits to farms and does not investigate compliance at processing facilities.

However, the Commission’s November 2017 study of European aquaculture, entitled ‘Welfare of farmed fish: Common practices during transport and at slaughter’, found that the stunning of sea bass is only taking place in the EU on an experimental basis, and that current commercial practice does not render them immediately unconscious or insensible to pain.

Following these contradictory statements, could the Commission confirm whether the production and farming of organic sea bass currently produced and sold in Europe complies with EU regulations?

Does the Commission consider that the regulations on the slaughter of organic fish are being implemented and controlled adequately?

Can consumers trust organic certification?

Answer given by Mr Hogan on behalf of the European Commission

(22 December 2018)

The EU organic certification system requires Member States to establish a control system to assure compliance with the EU organic legislation. The entire organic control system is supervised by the Commission based on the annual reports provided by the member states and the audits carried out by the Commission (the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety).

The report referred to by the Honourable Members concluded that the visited organic aquaculture business operators generally complied with the EU rules on organic aquaculture production. The same report included a section on ‘welfare and slaughter’.

One of the findings was that the Control Bodies certifying organic aquaculture operators were systematically assessing the application of animal welfare husbandry practices (i.e. feeding, design of installations, stocking densities, water quality, handling and transport) in the course of the certification process.

With regard to the slaughter methods, it was found that on the one hand, electrical stunning was used for salmon and trout and on the other hand, turbot, sea bass and sea bream were under normal commercial farming conditions slaughtered by chilling on ice.

The Commission (the Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety) organises fact-finding missions to increase awareness among organic operators of the European Food Safety Authority species-specific scientific opinions, including those on the welfare at killing of farmed Atlantic salmon, turbot, carp, eel, sea bass, trout and tuna.

On this occasion, the Commission also encourages Member States’ competent authorities to include fish welfare within the scope of official controls.