A cooperative of rabbit breeders wants to have its own abattoir facility to save the “overwhelmed” industry.

“Imported rabbit meat has engulfed the market. We have been overwhelmed and can’t compete. Something must be done to save the Maltese rabbit,” a spokesman for the Malta Rabbit Breeders Cooperative told The Sunday Times of Malta.

The cooperative’s claims follow a report by this newspaper last summer revealing that 300,000 kilos of rabbit meat was imported in 2012, three times the amount produced locally.

All locally bred rabbits should be processed in one of three recognised abattoirs, which provide each carcass with a numerical registration tag.

The cooperative, however, is insisting that the authorised facilities have hindered local production. While the National Abattoir can cater for all local produce, one of the abattoirs can only legally slaughter produce from the same premises while the other is not large enough to handle the national supply.

“Two out of the three abattoirs cannot slaughter our produce. This leaves us with serious problems in supplying the market,” the spokesman said.

The breeders believe a new centralised system should also be coupled with an awareness campaign to inform the public on how to recognise local produce.

“When you go to a butcher’s almost none of the rabbits have a tag. This rule needs to be enforced and people need to ask for it if the industry is to survive,” the spokesman said.

A non-scientific assessment by the cooperative estimated that as much as 90 per cent of local butchers and restaurants offered imported rabbit variations. A large selection of this, they insist, was being sold as local produce.

The majority of imports last year came from Italian producers, which the spokesman said had been dumping it on the local market.

“We are receiving bulk shipments for much cheaper than rabbit sells in foreign markets. They do this to maintain price stability in their domestic market,” he said.

Foreign imports are not the only problem facing the local industry. Breeder Tony Zahra said several unauthorised breeders faced being shut down as their premises do not fall in line with EU standards.

Amateur breeders are permitted to keep up to 50 rabbits on their private premises without any form of animal licensing. The commercial slaughter of such rabbits, however, is illegal.

One amateur breeder, who preferred not to be named, said she had been selling her produce to local butchers for more than 20 years but feared being shut down.

“I slaughter my own rabbits because the abattoirs would report me for breeding rabbits on a commercial scale. The authorities would shut all amateur breeders down who do this. We need to be regularised because without us local production would probably die,” she said.

Joseph Mamo, the island’s largest breeder, estimated the figure for local produce would double if all non-registered rabbits were taken into consideration.

“I produce about 50,000 rabbits every year. But I’d say about 3,000 every week are produced across the island – many of which go unregistered. This needs to be monitored,” Mr Mamo said.

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