The first International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, took place from 3 to 7 September, 2007, in Interlaken, Switzerland. The main achievement of the Conference was the adoption of the Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources, the …
Awareness of farm animal welfare issues is growing in Canada, as part of a larger food movement. The baseline Canadian standards for farm animal welfare – the Recommended Codes of Practice for the Care and Handling of Farm Animals – are up for revision. The success of these standards will depend in part on perceived legitimacy, which …
The US egg industry is being pressured from many directions to change its production practices, particularly to address concerns about hen welfare in conventional cage systems. Responding to similar pressures, in 1999, the European Union banned conventional laying cages starting in 2012. This now impending European ban has led to the development of several alternative …
This paper is the report of a meeting that gathered many of the UK’s most senior animal scientists with representatives of the farming industry, consumer groups, animal welfare groups, and environmentalists. There was strong consensus that the current economic structure of agriculture cannot adequately address major issues of concern to society: farm incomes, food security …
In this study, laying hen welfare is taken into account as part of an overall ‘egg safety and quality concept’. A holistic approach is adopted that encompasses the whole food chain in which responsibility for the production of safe and high quality eggs is shared along the entire food chain. Scientific data on egg quality …
An ‘‘Animal Needs Index’’ ANI (German: ‘‘Tiergerechtheitsindex’’ TGI) was developed to be used primarily at farm level as an instrument for assessing and grading livestock housing with respect to the well-being of the animals. Today, several different systems exist. The approach pursued in Austria (ANI 35 L) considers five husbandry conditions: (1) possibility of mobility, …
European legislation demands that slaughter animals, including poultry, be rendered immediately unconscious and insensible until death occurs through blood loss at slaughter. This study addressed requirements for stunner settings (i.e., voltage, wave oscillation frequency) and response parameters (i.e., applied current, behavior) affecting effective water bath stunning. An inventory of current electrical stunning practice was performed …
Environmental effects of economic activities are ultimately driven by consumption, via impacts of the production, use, and waste management phases of products and services ultimately consumed. Integrated product policy (IPP) addressing the life-cycle impacts of products forms an innovative new generation of environmental policy. Yet this policy requires insight into the final consumption expenditures and …
Differences in soil, climate and socioeconomic conditions cause animal production to vary widely between European regions, notably in animal density and percentage landless farming. They have in common that animal products result from the cycling and redistribution of nutrients through soil, air, plants, animals and manure, with energy from photosynthesis or from the input of …
Conventions to protect domestic animals during transport, farming and slaughter were established by the Council of Europe and approved by many European states. Conventions are followed by recommendations that specify how the general principles of conventions apply for the different species. The European Union (EU) started discussions on animal welfare in the 1980s and adopted …
In this article, the welfare of the laying hen is used to illustrate a proposed approach to regulation of the welfare of animals. The probable replacement of the present cage systems to a range of management systems in the future needs to be guided by regulations that act as a reference point and are not …
With the General Food Law, the European Union has finalized a process of modification and restructuring of existing directives for all commodities, resulting in 1 General Food Law. This paper describes the background to European legislation in general and the specific objectives of the present General Food Law. Important sections in this law are the …
Farm assurance schemes are an inevitable and essential part of the UK livestock industries as they provide valuable assurances to the market over food safety, nonhuman animal welfare, and environmental concerns.However, there is potential for welfare assessment within such schemes to extend beyond existing resourcebased parameters to include outcome-based observations of the behavior and physical …
This review starts with a brief outline of poultry behaviour and biology and a description of the present laying hen farming situation in Italy. Moreover, it points out the situation of EU legislation currently in effect for laying hen welfare. It then reviews the main welfare issues of layer farming. The following aspects are considered: …
Commencing in 2007, a collaborative project to develop the ’’National Animal Welfare Standards for the Livestock Transport Industry’’ (the Standards) was completed and the documentation was integrated with the existing industry quality assurance (QA) program, TruckCare. The project was the fifth in a series of 6 projects commencing from 1998, to develop industry-wide animal welfare …
Since the publication of Animal Machines (Harrison, 1964), there has been widespread public pressure in Europe—supported by European institutions—to “ban the battery cage.” The European Union (EU) and national governments (particularly in Northern Europe) funded research on noncage systems for egg production and enriched cages. In 1986, theEUpassed a Directive specifying a minimum size for …
The success of welfare legislation for nonhuman animals rests upon primary producer compliance that, in turn, is affected by public willingness to pay (WTP) for such initiatives. Although the topic of the welfare of animals on farms (and relevant legislation) is becoming increasingly important to the Australian public, there remain relatively few recent assessments of …
