OUR ENVIRONMENT
“SOME SLAUGHTERHOUSES AND SUPPLIERS ARE PROCESSING CERTIFIED DOWN ALONGSIDE NON-CERTIFIED DOWN OR, EVEN WORSE, DOWN THAT KNOWINGLY STEMS FROM FORCE-FED OR LIVE-PLUCKED GEESE”
SO - WHICH DOWN CERTIFICATION SCHEME IS BEST?
Richard Talbot has been a mine of information about down, but I dig my heels in and corner him. I want to know if any of the farms in Mountain Equipment’s Down Codex supply chain also sell down from live-plucked or force-fed birds. “We aren’t 100% sure,” he replies. “With our Russian goose source it is extremely unlikely. It’s one slaughterhouse dealing with only a handful of self-contained farms. With our Asian source (which is also an RDS-certified source) I don’t know, and the scales involved make it much harder to be sure.” I contact Patagonia again, and hassle them with the same question. “No,” they reply. “The Traceable Down Standard does not allow for parallel production (keeping live-plucked or force- fed birds along with non-live-plucked and non-force-fed birds).” But the issue is not clear-cut. Although it’s much more difficult to manage, and change comes slowly, Mountain Equipment
and RDS’s approach is improving bird-welfare on thousands of small farms the world over, without affecting the livelihoods of small family farmers. “Birds on small family farms probably have the best informal welfare standards possible,” says Richard Talbot. “If I said, would you prefer to buy from the small local farm down the road, or the big industrial place 50 miles away, which would you go for? On the downside, it’s very difficult to check living conditions on thousands of tiny farms.” Sourcing down only from big industrial farms, on the other hand, might make it easier to monitor what goes on, but may also encourage down suppliers to dump small farmers. “Farming on big scales potentially comes at the expense of other areas of welfare — all birds being barn-raised en-masse and so on,” says Richard. “I know Four Paws have similar concerns.” Patagonia argue that their standard has strict requirements on access to water, food and darkness, as well as air quality, temperature, and many other criteria. I also hear, on the industry grapevine, that there is talk of a merger between RDS and TDS, which could work to the strengths of both approaches moving forwards.
ARE WE SO MUCH BETTER IN THE WEST?
Recently, Mountain Equipment pulled on their wellies and visited a British farm, Johnson and Swarbrick, which sells Goosnargh duck meat to high-end restaurants like Gordon Ramsay. “We felt that it was strange to impose restrictions on farms in China and Eastern Europe when we didn’t know what is acceptable here,” explained Richard Talbot. Even on this high-quality farm, they found that the barn-kept birds didn’t have access to open water. I do some research, and find an in-depth report into this issue by the RSPCA, produced in 2015. The conclusion is: “The lack of access to open water is the most important welfare concern facing commercial ducks.” However, it’s not mandatory here in the West. Many farm wildfowl only have access to drinking water through a drip-feeder. When Richard raised the issue with the farm representative, he was told that when they had tried free-range birds, it had resulted in a lot of deaths because “birds were caught out in storms.” I think about this, and as plenty of disturbing viral videos
GET DOWN WITH THE FA C T S
Most of a bird’s commercial value is in its meat; 20% of its value comes from down
Over 80% of the waterfowl (down market) is taken up by ducks, not geese
48 | CLIMB. WALK. JOIN.
PHOTO: MOUNTAIN EQUIPMENT.
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