Denmark joins the first EU project focused on animal welfare

Practical solutions that have been shown to enhance pig welfare will be identified and shared in a major EU project.

The Danish Agriculture & Food Council and SEGES Innovation are the Danish participants in a major EU project that focuses on pig welfare. Placing practitioners at the forefront, the project aims to identify welfare initiatives that work in practice in key areas. Eight EU countries are involved. In addition to Denmark, the other countries are Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain.

Pig producers across the EU are facing a common challenge: they want to enhance welfare, but it is difficult to obtain a clear overview of what initiatives really make a difference to pig welfare - and what the various initiatives mean in terms of the environment, the climate and the financial bottom line.

A new, largescale EU-financed project, WelFarmers, aims to reduce this uncertainty. The aim of the project is to gather and disseminate knowledge to farmers across the EU about loose-housed sows, undocked tails, pain-free castration, more entire males, and improved quality in pen design for growers and finishers. The project is based on best practice and what has been shown to work on pig farms. This is rare for a EU-financed project, explains Trine Vig, Head of Food & Animal Health Policy at the Danish Agriculture & Food Council.

“It’s rather unusual to have an EU project that is based on practical farming. Typically, this type of project is characterised by a top-down approach that begins with the thoughts and ideas of researchers. But this particular project turns the usual approach on its head and starts with what is actually going on at farm level. We’re delighted with this new way of doing things” says Trine Vig.

Many solutions

The eight countries represent more than half the pig production in the EU, with significant differences in approach and production methods between them.

"This means that we can expect to get many models for solutions to the various challenges and consequently a better understanding of what constitutes best practice. This will, of course, result in a large amount of useful knowledge that can be used out in the farms to improve animal welfare. This is important in itself but it’s also knowledge that we can use in our work to ensure legislation for better welfare and which can be integrated into modern production,” says Trine Vig.

“Work on reform to animal welfare legislation has more or less come to a standstill in the EU. The new knowledge that Welfarmers will create will therefore be important when the work to create new European welfare legislation resumes.

“It’s obvious that the new knowledge generated by the project will be incorporated into the work undertaken in connection with the upcoming revision of animal welfare legislation. It will be highly relevant as it is based on actual knowledge of production and therefore very close to what has been put into practice. I strongly believe that the project will help raise the level of animal welfare across the EU and in general. As far as Danish production is concerned, we will be able to draw some fresh inspiration, and the areas where we demonstrate best practice can be used as a standard for pig production throughout the EU,” says Trine Vig.

Read more about the project here:  Inici - WelFarmers Project

The contact person is the Head of Food and Animal Health Policy at the Danish Agriculture & Food Council

Trine Vig Tamstorf

+4530178872

tvt@lf.dk