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Sara Petrosyan

Armenia’s New Abattoirs Remain Underutilized; Animals Still Slaughtered In Unsanitary Conditions

The new slaughterhouse located in the Kotayk community of Mayakovsky is one of the five in Armenia created as part of a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) project.

The abattoir, which opened this spring, has so far slaughtered 4,000 sheep destined to be exported to Iran.

The Mayakovsky facility, like the other four, remains underused.

The new slaughterhouses, located in four provinces in the country, were financed by Greece at a cost of US$1.622 million.

Armen Hovhannisyan, director of the FAO project, says that before the slaughterhouse opened animals were processed at a smaller facility in the village of Voghjaberd. Hovhannisyan, who attended FAO training, says that a veterinary is on site to make sure the animals are healthy.

Hovhannisyan built the abattoir with his own money and it is equipped with the latest equipment. But he cannot say if the facility will be profitable or not. The cost of slaughtering one sheep is 1,500 dram (US$3.20).

Despite the seemingly low cost, villagers don’t use the facility. It costs them too much to transport the animals to the new slaughterhouse.

The FAO abattoir project was designed to prevent contagious diseases and to ensure the safety of meat and meat products.  The first step was to stop the slaughtering of animals at home and along the roadside.

The five private companies that operate slaughterhouses in Armenia built the facilities hoping to make a profit in the end.

In response to a prior article regarding the new slaughterhouse that opened in Odzoun (Lori Province) readers have said that all five abattoirs remain idle and that animals are still being killed along streets and in unsanitary conditions.

When Hetq wrote to Armenia’s Ministry of Agriculture, asking what steps were being taken to prevent such incidents, Deputy Minister Grisha Baghinyan responded that the ministry was in the process of drafting a policy regarding abattoirs and that it would be sent to the companies for debate. He said that once the policy was approved by the Ministry of Justice, it would be forwarded to the government.

Baghinyan noted that there were two options on the table. Villagers would either be obligated to transport their animals to the slaughterhouse and sell them, or that abattoir operators would have to collect animals from the villages, have them inspected, and then sell the meat to stores and other outlets.  

Baghinyan says that the option to be adopted will become clear by the end of November when the government reviews the policy document.

Baghinyan confessed that the stopping open air slaughtering all at once would be difficult; even after the document is adopted.

“Ensuring the application of the document, all at once, is impossible. It will take time. Only when slaughterhouses can meet the demand of the entire country can we enact punitive measures,” Baghinyan told Hetq.

 

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