SIR - Compassion In World Farming (CIWF) has just made public the overall results of its exhaustive two-yearly survey to monitor how well animals are reared, transported and slaughtered for the UK's leading supermarkets.

The results show that Britain's supermarkets are continuing to make good progress in many aspects of farm animal welfare and give a clear indication of supermarkets' commitment to improve animal welfare in response to rapidly-growing consumer demand. In particular, they deserve praise for moving away from battery eggs and for encouraging the humane slaughter of fish. However, the CIWF survey also reveals that supermarkets will permit some alarming farming practices that leave farmed animals open to suffering. It is unacceptable that imported pig meat from stall systems that are banned on cruelty grounds in the UK is being sold here. It is even more unacceptable that supermarkets are permitting farmers to break government guidelines and to ignore EU legislation.

We know that the supermarkets have the power to change this, and that we, as consumers, want them to. As consumers, we can all help accelerate the pace of change by ensuring that any meat, poultry and other animal products we buy are free-range or, better still, organic.

D SINCLAIR,

Castlemorton.