A summary of a workshop jointly arranged by
DeLaval and the Swedish University of Agricultural Science’s Research Programme on "Animal welfare for quality in food production"
At Hamra farm in Sweden
18-20 October 2001.
The program for the 2002 Seminar (link)
Introduction
Animal welfare encompasses two primary areas. The first area relates to producing a high quality raw food product, resulting from healthy and high producing animals. The second involves the production system as regards ethical acceptability, environmental friendliness and economic competitiveness. If a farm can operate both areas, without constraint on each other, it can generate a profitable return and strongly protect the welfare of animals simultaneously.
As discussed in the preface, animal welfare will vary from place to place in its definition and is dependent on various localisation factors. The latter can include societal development, the economy, animal production development, traditional values, climate, soil and water availability.
An interdisciplinary programme entitled “Animal Welfare for Quality in Food Production” is currently running at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). This programme is aimed at disclosing benchmarks for animal wellbeing and sustained productivity in a global perspective, through analysis of human attitudes, generic factors, housing implementation, management routines plus feeding systems.
DeLaval holds animal welfare as core to its operations. Making the company the farmer’s first choice means, among other things, protecting milk quality and advancing R&D in this area to help it drive progress in milk production worldwide.
This seminar shares SLU research, DeLaval competence plus R&D in the field of animal welfare, with customers, scientists and other subjective experts – in order to identify the best animal husbandry practices for future use.
Discussion will focus on identifying attitudes, policies, practices plus legislation – towards housing, management, feeding, breeding, transportation and slaughter. Participants from India, Italy, Poland, USA and Sweden participating in group discussions.
Summary of group discussions and reports
In groups and in the plenary session the definition of animal welfare was brought up as an important issue. It was obvious that it is difficult to find one single definition that every one can agree upon. At the same time it is important to find a way in which animal welfare can be discussed and developed as a globally common issue.
One proposal was to establish “Improved animal welfare” as a common base for continued co-operation. Improved animal welfare is of importance in every region and for everyone involved in animal husbandry. Within such a frame different aspects can be highlighted in different parts of the world. The consequence of such an understanding of the issue is that we need to – in different regions – define what are the most urgent needed improvements in anima welfare? In working on these improvements experiences from other parts of the world can be of interest and use.
It was also proposed and agreed upon that the animal living conditions that we are interested in are those created by man not those that emanate from the animals natural behaviour like systems of hierarchy causing troubles to individual animals. (That is if not humans disturb the possibility for cows to react naturally by, for example, forcing low ranked cows to stay next to high ranked cows).
It was proposed and agreed upon that the markers that we can define will be the kind of markers that can be used by interested parties - farmers, industry representatives, authorities, consumers and market companies – and not primarily by scientists. The latter is, of course, also of interest, but much more has already been done in that perspective. There is a dialogue between scientists all over the world. The problem is that very often this scientific discussion is hard to understand for laymen.
Another issue that was discussed is how do we know when an animal is happy? Established definitions from scientists were referred to and the idea that conditions are satisfactory when the animal is coping easily with its environment was agreed upon.
When we talk about animal welfare it is the general idea in society that we have to confront. Therefore we should ask people in general what their understanding of good animal welfare is. Things that we – involved in animal husbandry – find easy to understand and cope with might be difficult to understand for those not involved. An example of this could be separation of calves from cows at a very early stage of life for newborn claves.
The importance of labelling systems was mentioned. If animal welfare becomes a criteria for labelling systems it will also become more important for consumers and they will then demand improvements from the producers. We should use this increasing influence and power of the consumers to improve animal welfare.
In the discussion of different markers the following were proposed:
- Longevity. For industrialised countries like Sweden and the USA the number of lactations per cow is very low and decreasing. The short lives of cows in milk production might be an indicator of animal welfare problems. It was objected that a very long life also could be an indicator of problems. Milk production in India, were cows are not slaughtered for religious reasons can exemplify this.
- Level of milk production: When starting from very low levels of knowledge on how feeding and hygiene interferes with milk production, improvement in these areas will increase milk production. This increase can therefore be a marker of better animal welfare. But when increased milk production is caused by use of growth hormones or other hormones it is no longer an indicator of improved animal welfare.
- Calf mortality: In some countries – industrialised countries – we see increased calf mortality today. Is this an indicator of worse animal welfare in these countries?
- The use of medicines: High use of antibiotics, hormones and other medicines can indicate that we stress the animals too much. On the other hand the lack of use of medicines can also be an indicator of insufficient care taking of animals.
- Breeding goals: It was proposed that the breeding goals in different parts of the world also could serve as indicators for defining animal welfare.
- Incidence of different diseases: The incidence of different diseases was proposed as an important indicator. The problem here is to get the knowledge of this. Good veterinarian statistics are a precondition.
- Animal health: The health of animals is of course closely linked to the welfare of animals. The problem is the same as mentioned above. How do we get the knowledge if animals are healthy or not? In accordance with this problem we must be aware that health is necessary but not sufficient to define animal welfare.
- Lack of abnormal behaviour: Stereotypes in behaviour are definitely an indicator that the animal not is feeling well.
- Animal welfare index: Would it be possible to create an animal welfare index? Such an index must be usable to producers, industry, consumers and other interested parties. In breeding of animals indexes are created.
As promoters for the use of animal welfare markers the following were mentioned:
- The interest of media
- Improved profitability
- Education
- Consumer demands
- Marketing possibilities
- Collective actions from Farmers federations
- Actions from veterinarian organisations
- Political demands
- Scientific results.
- Subsidies
Obviously it is very difficult to find the markers that have the same meaning in different parts of the world.
The interest from different parties in animal welfare - farmers, industry, representatives, authorities and consumers – is varying in different regions of the world. Therefore it is important to improve awareness and knowledge on these issues. From a milk producing farmer’s perspective the relation between improved animal welfare and increased profitability is of great importance and key to encourage farmers to invest in better animal welfare.
Comparisons with other sectors in society were made. There are systems to certify production in different areas. ISO- standards and the HCCP system were mentioned. There have also been systems for comparing hotels all over the world developed. A three star hotel has the same standard all over the world, with small differences. Likewise it should be possible to create certifying systems for food production based on animal husbandry.
In some parts of the world it has become an issue whether humans have the moral right to use animals for human purposes or not. Ethical considerations become more and more important. For DeLaval it is necessary to motivate its participation in an industry that uses animals. Such a motivation would be of good help to employees, customers and consumers.
In connection to this the idea in modern society that “natural behaviour” is possible to use guiding lines for human behaviour should also be disputed. We have to be aware that we sometimes mix ideas on human welfare with those of animals. The idea to bring cows into barns and keep them there tied up is not related to welfare of the animals but to the fact that humans need the animals housed in colder climates.
It was proposed that a concrete project on testing animal welfare as a marketing advantage should be done in co-operation with partners in the industry, representing other links in the chain of milk production from raw milk production to the shelves in the super markets. In addition to this it was proposed that reference farms in different parts of the world should be established were animal welfare was a part of the production concept. These good examples could be of interest in encouraging and educating other farmers and interested parties.
It was underlined how important the education of farmers and others involved in milk production is.
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