Farmers face jail in tough new EU food laws

FARMERS and food retailers could be jailed or have their business shut down under tough new EU legislation aimed at boosting consumer confidence in the food industry.

A complete revamp of the EU’s food safety laws to be announced this week will, for the first time, include criminal penalties for a wide range of offences.

These include trying to sell food with banned or unsafe levels of additives, hormones or pesticides; failing to notify contagious animal or shellfish diseases; slaughtering animals for meat without official inspection and causing cruelty to animals, including during transport.

Health and Consumer Affairs Commissioner David Byrne, who is responsible for the tough new measures, hopes they will force governments to place the consumer first and take food safety seriously.

Consumer groups and the Commission have been complaining for some time that governments are only paying lip service to food safety and are not enforcing the law.

The draft EU regulation lists the offences in detail and says they will be considered criminal acts when committed intentionally or through serious negligence.

If it goes through, it will be the first time criminal sanctions will be attached to EU legislation initiated by the Commission.

While the penalties for the offences will be set by each member State, the legislation will insist the punishments must be “effective, proportionate and dissuasive”.

Individuals found guilty will face jail, while companies could be heavily fined, lose their public aid, be disqualified from engaging in business or be shut down.

The legislation is in response to recent food scandals, which include the use of hormones from an Irish pharmaceutical plant in pig feed in Holland, dioxins discovered in feed for chickens in Belgium and sludge added to animal feed in France.

Sources close to Mr Byrne said: “We are taking the kind of action that consumers are expecting because they feel some operators are not taking food safety responsibilities seriously enough.”

They added somebody stealing food can be jailed while those who poison people by contaminating food can get away scot free.

Officials believe Government ministers will be reluctant to adopt criminal measures to support food safety, but because objections to the hard-hitting legislation will appear to be anti-consumer, the legislation is expected to be passed without a hitch.

A spokesperson for the European consumers group BUEC said the EU had introduced good food safety laws but needed to enforce them.