Environmental research

Developing a safe and environmentally friendly slaughter house. VN/SGP/OP4/CORE/08/006 Thanh Hoa is an economic and political centre of the Northern Central province of Thanh Hoa. The City has GDP growth rate of more than 20% during 2006-2010 and GDP per capita in 2007 was USD 1,460 per annum. With a population of more than 200,000 people, Thanh Hoa is currently graded as a developed Category II City in the region. It has a plan to be upgraded to Category I City of Thanh Hoa Province. In respect of agricultural production, the City has: pigs: 37,062, cattle: 4,487; poultry: 324,275. In 2007 there were 8 more animal husbandry farms, which make up total of 149 farms altogether. Nearly every farm has been given some support from the Government in terms of infrastructure and operation. At present, Thanh Hoa province has only 2 licensed slaughterhouses which meet hygiene standards and provide meat foods for export with capacity of nearly 2,000 tons of frozen meet/year. The remaining meet food for consumption in the province is made available by meat suppliers/retailers (commonly individual households, which poses difficulty for the authority in terms of controlling diseases and slaughtering practices. Since 2005-2007, under the guidance of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on gathering households slaughter sites into centralized slaughterhouses in order to ensure fitness of meat for consumption and prevent spread of diseases and environmental pollution, Thanh Hoa province has zoned the centralized slaughterhouses, there are currently 4 slaughterhouses in Thanh Hoa City, and other 2 in other locations. As individual households are participating in the livestock raising industry at small scale, environmental problems are great challenges and of concern of the public and the Government. , Slaughterhouse waste discharged to the environment such as animal faces and blood, wastewater has been proportionally increasing in quantity with the growth of livestock raising industry. Most of the individual farmers discharge untreated wastewater to the environment, which could greatly affected public health. Small-scale slaughterhouse scattered every places without any facility to treat waste and wastewater, which is dangerous to people s health due to consequently polluted air, irrigation water and spread of diseases. It has been difficult for the authority to quarantine the animals and control the slaughtering practices. This has been due to lack of human resources, distances between the slaughterhouses and the time when the slaughtering could take place (at nights in many instances). As a consequence, meat without being quarantine and certified as fit for consumption has been brought to the market. In Thanh Hoa City alone, there is demand for 105 pigs and nearly 1,000 fowls. Although the City has several centralized slaughterhouses as mentioned above, these have not operating effectively due to the lack of control over households slaughtering practices and lack of incentives for these households to have their cattle/fowls slaughtered at centralized slaughterhouses. The causes of drawbacks in addressing environmental issues of the livestock raising industry in general and slaughtering practices in particular include: + Lack of facility and money to invest in centralized livestock farms and slaughterhouses, especially investment in measures to ensure hygiene and environmental standards in livestock raising and slaughtering. + Limited awareness habits in respect of food hygiene and environmental standards of the livestock raising industry. + Lack of good practices in addressing environmental issues of livestock raising farm and slaughterhouses + Lack of detailed government s regulations, guidelines and enforcement measures to provide incentives to addressing environmental problems in livestock raising and also to centralizing slaughtering operations. During 2008, the City s People s Committee has made efforts in preventing animal disease outbreaks including: Issuing regulations (with penalty provision) to enforce centralization of slaughtering operations in the City; stamping the animal and/or meet as certification for quarantine and hygiene; assigning working groups to effect the establishment of centralized slaughterhouses. These efforts effectively helped control animal disease outbreaks and reduce economical damage to the farmers. However, there need to be consistent and holistic mechanism to address issues of animal diseases, environmental pollution and food hygiene in an effective and sustainable manner. General objective of the project: to zone and establish a slaughter site that meets veterinary hygiene and accommodates waste treatment facility, which will contribute to addressing epidemics, food safety and environmental issues associated with slaughtering operations. Major activities: Survey and design models at the selected slaughterhouse. 1. Zone and improve the landscape of the selected slaughterhouse to ensure veterinary hygiene standards and accommodate waste management initiatives. 2. Technical measures of the project: o Produce biogas from slaughter waste. Biogas produced from biogas- underground tanks will be used to supply energy for various activities of the slaughterhouse such as cooking, heating and running the electricity generator for water pumping and lighting. Appliances using solar-energy will be installed as supplements to biogas so as to supply sufficient energy needs of th

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