STRATEGY ▶▶▶
Driving higher animal welfare
Retailers and producer groups are leading the way in driving forward positive animal welfare changes across all animal production sectors, according to the findings of the latest Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare (BBFAW) report.
T BY TONY MCDOUGAL
racey Jones, Compassion in World Farming Director of FoodBusiness, highlighted Sainsbury’s Sustaina- ble Dairy Group, which in the past ten years has re- duced dairy cow lameness from 25% to 7%, helping
the physical and mental well-being of stock. Addressing in- vestors and stakeholders at the launch of the 7th
annual re-
port in London, Dr Jones also highlighted the growing use of technology in the livestock industry to alleviate welfare con- cerns. “The use of optic flow patterns enables us to see move- ment patterns in broilers with regard to future cases of foot- pad dermatitis. We can now predict at day 14 which birds are going to have walking difficulties later in the cycle,” she said. “Similarly, vocalisation techniques – looking at coughing in pigs – can highlight future issues of lung disease in pigs.”
Annual survey Results from the annual survey – this year covering 150 glob- al companies – found that while many had now adopted farm animal welfare policies and implemented farm animal management systems, the majority provided only limited or no information on farm animal welfare performance. The overall score for companies fell from 37% last year to 32%, partly due to the influx of 43 companies mainly from the Far East and Latin America which had lower welfare standards. Nicky Amos, BBFAW executive director, said more needed to be done in this area: “While just over half of companies report on the proportion of animals that are free from close confine- ment, only one in four companies covered by the Benchmark provides any information on the proportion of animals that are stunned and only one in five companies reports on live animal transport times.”
16 ▶ POULTRY WORLD | No. 4, 2019
Dr Rory Sullivan, BBFAW expert adviser, said investors needed to have confidence that companies are delivering the out- comes that they aspire to. Helen Vines Fiestas, Deputy Global Head of Sustainability at BNP Paribas Asset Management, said regulations in Europe were playing a key part in driving higher welfare standards, adding that it was now time for more pressure to be placed on North American legislators. The report demonstrated that UK companies achieved a sig- nificantly higher average score (61%) compared to other re- gions, such as North America (28%) and Europe (excluding the UK) (34%). Cranswick, Noble Foods, Marks and Spencer, Waitrose and Co-op Group (Switzerland) were confirmed in the report as global leaders on farm animal welfare. Of the 150 companies assessed, 63 were in the Producers and Manu- facturers sector, including the top 40 global producers and top 10 poultry producers with annual revenues of over US$ 4.6bn.
PHOTO: RONALD HISSINK
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