Our charity, Stepney City Farm, took over the management of a community farm in Stepney, then called Stepping Stones Farm, at the end of 2009. The Farm faced imminent closure as it had become very run down and had no employees or organisational structure. A number of local people joined together, set up a charity, and sought to keep the Farm open and improve it as an invaluable resource in a very deprived area of London. Those who live locally have seen the rapid transformation that has taken place in the last few years due to the hard work of many local volunteers and, more recently, staff.
The Farm is, and always has been, a working Farm. Animals and crops are raised for food as in thousands of Farms across the country, albeit on a much smaller scale. We are a not for profit charity operating on the tightest of budgets. We are a community of meat eaters, vegetarians and vegans, who make decisions on a committee basis. By operating as a working Farm we make the keeping of animals financially sustainable as well as fulfilling our charitable objectives of educating people about agriculture and horticulture. We are working hard to so that we can keep the Farm open as an important, free resource in one of the poorest and most densely populated areas in the UK.
The site is very small, and in the middle of a residential area of East London. When we first took over the management at the Farm, it was vastly overstocked for such a small site and there were animal welfare issues that had resulted in RSPCA involvement. We worked quickly to move animals, including goats and sheep, on to more suitable homes (including two animal sanctuaries when it was not viable for them to go to another farm) and to work with the RSPCA and DEFRA to ensure the highest standards of welfare for all the animals on the Farm.
There were five Sussex-cross cattle on site. In particular, we felt, and were strongly advised by our vet, that keeping fully-grown large breeds of cattle –including a bull –was unfair to the cows as well as a risk to volunteers and visitors and we soon found other farms for three of them.
However, there was a problem with Lloyd and Leila. Due to an oversight, they had not been registered at birth by the previous management and did not have “cow passports”. Partly as a result of the BSE crisis, and more latterly TB (we are considered to be high risk), there are strict regulations governing the registration and movement of cows. All cows are required to be registered immediately at birth and they may only be issued with a passport if this has been done. As Lloyd and Leila were not registered by Stepping Stones Farm and did not have cow passports, the law stipulated that they could never leave the Farm or enter the food chain.
We were faced with the problem of having two animals that were both entirely unsuitable for the site and inconsistent with being a working Farm. It was recommended to us that they were culled at that stage, but we sought to find a solution that would allow them to move. We registered Lloyd and Leila immediately, and since 2009 we tried and tried to see if there was any way DEFRA/BCMS (British Cattle Movement Service) would agree that there were special circumstances so they could be issued with a movement licence. We explained the background around our inheriting the Farm, and we also explained several times that we desperately needed to move them onto more appropriate conditions. The London Borough of Tower Hamlets wrote to DEFRA in support of our requests on one occasion. DEFRA acknowledged our representations but said that it was not possible to make an exemption.
In the meantime, we worked hard to improve the conditions for the cows. We dug out by hand years of accumulated muck to provide them with a small amount of hard-standing – the fields cannot hold heavy cattle and they been up to their knees in mud for much of the year. Matters got worse when Lloyd became fully mature and was particularly aggressive when Leila – his sister –was on heat. Having a bull on a City Farm was impossible as they are dangerous and we again were advised to cull him at that stage, but we instead had him neutered in the hope that our representations to DEFRA would bear fruit. We then lost a third of the site to the Crossrail works, which included the cow field. We now have little over an acre of grazing which is far less than the minimum recommended for two such large cows, let alone for the other sheep, goats, donkeys and geese we have on the Farm.
All the animals at Stepney City Farm are looked after and cared for to the highest standards; the compensatory works undertaken by Crossrail included the fields being re-drained and improved, water plumbed in to each field and new animal housing. The staff and volunteers give the animals very close attention and our vet has commended us on the particularly high standards of animal welfare. However, ultimately they are Farm animals and we don’t shy away from being open about that and educating people in the process of food production.
Some meat eaters, who have come to visit the Farm, when confronted with the chickens or lambs that they are happy to eat at the fried chicken or kebab shop are shocked when we explain that the animals are being raised for food. This makes them think again about eating meat. That is part of the education we provide, and perhaps those people may become vegan or vegetarian or instead decide to eat meat that has been reared to comply with high welfare standards.
We strive to address welfare standards in all areas of food production: for example, we regularly give a home to ex-battery hens that come to us almost featherless, barely able to stand and having never been outside. We’ve involved our young volunteers in a project charting their return to health on the Farm, so that they understand the importance of buying free-range eggs.
It was not an easy decision to make and it was not down to just one factor, but we reached the decision (a view our vet strongly supported) that we could no longer keep Lloyd and Leila. We were glad we have been able to improve their living conditions, and give them a good life for as long as we were able. It is very unfortunate that the previous management did not register the cows, though the fact cannot be escaped that if they had been registered and could enter the food chain, they would have been moved and would have been slaughtered years ago.
In October of this year, we communicated our decision to cull the cows as we have always sought to be open about the work we undertake. Hillside Animal Sanctuary contacted us and said they had been permitted by DEFRA to take in cattle in similar circumstances, without passports, in the past. We were also contacted by Jim Fitzpatrick MP (not our constituency MP) who, as an ex-farming minister, asked us to delay the decision so that he could make a personal approach to the current minister to facilitate the issue of a movement licence. We met with Mr Fitzpatrick who accepted that the only solution was for a movement licence to be granted.
We wrote ourselves to the BCMS and to the Secretary of State asking whether a one-off movement licence could be granted so the cows could go to Hillside. We were told this was not possible and Mr Fitzpatrick received a personal response from the Minister explaining further the reasons behind the decision. Mr Fitzpatrick and Hillside thought a further approach on the basis of new information might work and we co-operated with Hillside and Mr Fitzpatrick in organising for our vet to undertake testing to support the renewed application (our thanks to Hillside for providing the crush and for Crossrail for providing the heavy lifting equipment that was required to put it in place. We do not have any trained stock persons and the animals were unused to the equipment. We eventually managed to get the results, but it was a difficult and dangerous process). Both Mr Fitzpatrick and we made further representations, our last approach being to BCMS / DEFRA on 8th December 2013 and further to an email to the Secretary of State and the Minister by way of DEFRA on 2nd December 2013.
Last week, we received a letter from both the Policy Department at DEFRA and a personal response from the Minister explaining that an exception could not be made and making very clear that was a final decision. We are grateful that such personal attention was given to this decision, and whilst we are of course very disappointed that the cows could not be moved to Hillside, as a responsible charity and farm we must accept the law.
We were then very surprised to see that Mr Fitzpatrick’s assistant had posted on Facebook and Twitter that he was seeking to look to Europe to challenge the Minister’s decision on the basis of advice he had received by a lawyer called Michael Shrimpton. This was not a step discussed with us, though we had previously seen a copy of the “Advice” sent from Mr Shrimpton (who had volunteered his opinion having read an article about the cows in the newspaper). We had taken our own advice about its merits from specialist barristers in European Community law. Whilst it was no doubt written with the best of intentions, it was, with respect, entirely misconceived, both on the substance of the issues and on the procedure (as well as containing a series of factual errors, perhaps understandably because it was based on a newspaper article).
In short it was suggested that the clear wording of the regulations should not have been applied because the cows were not “bovine animals” as they were now more “in the nature of pets”, and the Farm was not a “holding” because it was “not a commercial farm in the traditional sense”. We are in fact a registered holding and the Farm has always operated as a working farm, but, even if those assertions had been factually accurate,, any reading of the definitions – whether purposive or otherwise – does not allow for any distinction between bovine animals which are kept for different purposes, and there is no basis for arguing that the definition of a holding excludes a Farm that also had an educational purpose. The terms of Regulation (EC) No 1760/2000 are clear and the Minister’s decision is thus based on a normal and uncontroversial reading of the Regulation. The law on this issue is, to adopt the language of European Community law “acte clair” (i.e it has an obvious interpretation). What we had really been asking for from the Minister, in any event, was a discretionary exception to the rules. Furthermore, the procedure suggested in the Advice – that Mr Fitzpatrick approach the Commission for a “ruling” is equally misconceived: This may be intended to refer to a reference by a British Court to the Court of Justice under the preliminary rulings procedure in Article 267 TFEU. As an individual, Mr Fitzpatrick cannot do this. Theoretically, under Article 258 TFEU the Commission can bring proceedings against the UK government before the Court of Justice but that is a fanciful suggestion in these circumstances and does not appear to be what is suggested. There is an inherent jurisdiction for the Commission to give an opinion on a matter of general application, but these texts are used to facilitate the working of the common market and are not used in these circumstances. These processes, in any event, can take years. We had suggested Mr Fitzpatrick clarify the credibility of the source of the advice and assumed that had been done. We repeat that we have no doubt the advice was well intended, but those who suggest we should have aligned ourselves with Mr Shrimpton’s opinion might wish to consider, via an easy search on the internet, whether they share his views on, for example, Obama not being born in America and climate change denial, his stance on David Icke and Enoch Powell, and his conspiracy theories in general.
We are surprised and disappointed that Mr Fitzpatrick did not seek to discuss this matter with us as we are concerned it has given false hope to those who worked hard to secure a solution, particularly Hillside who, whilst we clearly share different aims as charities, have been extremely helpful and respectful throughout this process. Having considered the situation very carefully, we took the difficult decision to proceed with the cull and that has now been done. We hope this statement sets out the extensive steps we have taken to move the cows from the Farm, ensuring that it was considered repeatedly by DEFRA and ultimately at Ministerial level. We have been open about this process throughout and those who have visited to discuss the matter have accepted the very high welfare standards that were in place. That is part of the work we do as a charity operating a Farm in a city. We are grateful for the understanding of our local representatives and other community organisations who have supported our staff and volunteers through this very difficult time. We appreciate it is inevitable that some people will seek to criticise the Farm, but would ask them to respect the fact that it is us, who looked after the animals on a daily basis over the past few years and who have worked so hard to allow them to be moved, who will be most affected by the decision that we have all, after much agonised deliberation, decided was unavoidable. Whilst we must take these difficult decisions and address and educate about the process of food production, it is a very sad day at the Farm.