In our previous blog, it was briefly mentioned that sustainability is a multifaceted matter that needs to be discussed from different points of view. Three main principles of sustainability programs are normally built around Animal, Planet and People. Each principle has a wide variety of components that we will discuss in a series of blog posts in the future. In this blog, we will talk about animal welfare and its significance. “Animal Welfare at the Heart of Sustainability” is the title of a publication on the website of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Origination (FAO). The title itself is very telling.
Paying strict attention to the well-being of commercially raised animals is of paramount importance to both the industry and general public. In the U.S. poultry industry, for example, National Chicken Council, National Turkey Federation and United Egg Producers have developed welfare guidelines to be used by the broiler, turkey and layer production sectors, respectively. Results of a recent survey showed that animal products’ consumers (meat in this case) generally equated sustainability with the animal welfare as their response to the question of whether the meat they consume was produced sustainably and what that actually meant.
In principle, when animals are raised under favorable conditions to their well-being, they are normally able to maintain their health status, perform better and produce healthier products for human consumption. This inter-connectivity not only influences the “efficiency” of animal production systems, but it also affects the use of resources, the environmental footprint and consumers. This chain of causes-effects, although complicated to connect to each other, is a clear reflection on the relatedness of Animal, Planet and People as three main principles of any sustainability program.
Improvement in animal well-being is and will always be an on-going effort by the animal industry for sustainable animal production in different parts of the world. Some of these efforts include persistent training/educating of people involved in animal production at commercial operations including farmers, continued focus on welfare traits in genetic selection processes, and certainly having proactive/transparent communications with various stakeholders in different sectors of the society regarding constant strives to improve the welfare of commercially raised animals in every step of the way.