11/10/2024
Hello everyone - you may have heard that DBC (The Dardanup Butchering Company) has recently ended ‘service killing’ for small independent farmers.
This service is vital to those small scale, organic and grass fed producers who sell their products direct to the consumer and to small local butchers.
In a statement, DBC said capacity constraints meant the company was experiencing increased demand and had prioritised long-term customers and its own production over service kill customers.
The issue is that WA only has a handful of abattoirs that can handle small commercial meat production orders, with most of these already at capacity.
DBC initially gave less than a month’s notice of the cessation of this service, but has now increased this to six months. This is still just a temporary reprieve. The likely outcome is that our local small producers may soon have nowhere to process their animals.
This constitutes a real threat to the survival of small scale farming here in the Great Southern and other rural areas of WA and to our local economy.
We as consumers will lose the ability to choose what and where we buy. We will be coerced into the supermarket model where there is no information about where the product is from, how it was grown/raised or any of the other considerations that are important to those of us who want to know the source of our food and purchase products with transparent provenance.
This is important whether you are a meat eater or not. This is about massive stock property owners directing the market and small, independent producers being forced into the model that suits big business.
At a time when the federal government is conducting a Senate inquiry into how major supermarkets set prices and use their dominant market power, this is particularly relevant.
Do you think it's fair that WA 'farm to fork producers' have markets for produce but no access to an abattoir or processors in their region?
A group of local independent farmers is holding a free community forum this Tuesday 8th October (tomorrow) from 2 to 5pm at The Dam to discuss these and other questions arising from the decision.
More info can be found here:
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/affected-by-the-closure-of-dardenup-butchering-company-custom-kill-service-tickets-1028671463037?aff=ehometext&keep_tld=1
If you support independent, regenerative and sustainable farming practices, and are concerned about customer choice and food security in the Great Southern and South West of WA, I urge you to attend.
