As we have matured as a society, animal welfare has ceased to be a secondary concern to become a relevant element. For this reason, the main companies related to the production of food of animal origin have begun to move towards certification in this area, motivated by a growing proportion of consumers who are aware of this problem and value animal welfare when making responsible purchasing. To address this need, NEIKER participated in the European AWIN project, and IRTA had worked in the Welfare Quality project in protocols for cattle (milk and meat), whose objective was the development, integration and dissemination of animal welfare indicators. Based on this knowledge, NEIKER and IRTA have collaborated in the creation of the WELFAIR Certification Scheme, the only one in the world that is based entirely on proven scientific protocols.
The certification allows guaranteeing animal welfare in farms and slaughterhouses of multiple species, and together with a traceability audit, to achieve product labeling to value animal welfare in front of consumers. Crucial for the development and use of such a certification is the commercialization sector has to take into account this certification to establish prices.
This Good Practice has an Impact on:
- Socio-economic resilience: Certification costs impact in the result of the farm, but gives the opportunity to the farm to increase the price of its products.
- Animal health and welfare: The fact of having a certificate in animal welfare ensures you control it in your farm. The identification of situations of lack of welfare caused by problems in the daily handling of the animals allows to act quickly by applying already established protocols. There are protocols related to animal comfort and individual integrity, animal's access to all resources (freedoms),
For further Information:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7dLS0CivwI (Welfare Quality story)
- http://www.irta.cat/es/produccion-animal/bienestar-animal/ (IRTA Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology)
- https://neiker.eus/es/campos-aplicacion/bienestar-animal/ (NEIKER Member of Basque Research and Technology Alliance)
- https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/266213/reporting/es (Final report AWIN project)
- http://www.welfarequality.net/en-us/home/ (Welfare Quality)
Other systems for animal welfare assessment, presented on the BovINE Knowledge Hub are for example EiKoTiGer, Boviwell.