Can Meat be Produced to Higher Welfare Standards?

A five year plan has been launched to encourage the production, sourcing and consumption of food and products from animals to be from higher welfare regimes across Europe.

The proposals put forward by the Farm Animal Welfare Forum call on the UK government to lead the way in forcing through new animal welfare measures in Europe.

The new measures follow on from the FAWF’s 2008 strategy that called for all egg-laying hens to be kept cage free, improvements in the welfare of chickens reared for meat, pigs to be kept in humane conditions without tail docking and improvements in welfare for dairy cows.

The strategy, outlined in the FAWF report Progressing Farming Tomorrow: Improving Animal Welfare in the UK, calls on the European Commission, led by the UK, to:

• To support a ban on the use of all cages, including ‘enriched’ cages, for egg laying hens in the EU
• To support clear, mandatory labelling of meat products according to the system of farming production, using defined terms that accurately communicate to the buying public
• To take action to support rigorous enforcement of EU legislation prohibiting routine tail-docking in pigs and requiring implementation of environment and management measures that reduce tail biting
• To take action to phase-out the use of the farrowing crate
• To establish EU-wide legislation to protect the welfare of dairy cows

The forum that consists of Compassion in World Farming, The Cooperative Food group, the Food Animal Initiative, RSPCA, the Soil Association, Bristol University and the World Society for the Protection of Animals, also urges the UK Government to support multi-stakeholder efforts to end calf exports and increase the proportion of calves that are reared for meat in humane systems.