Animal welfare implementation must also take economic benefits into account

One is a pig that has been free-range on the mountain for more than a year, and the other is a pig confined in a narrow space and rapidly fattened. As a consumer, which one would you choose? When the price difference is not very large, probably not many people would choose the latter. The reason is simple, because people are more inclined to believe that the pig that can run freely on the mountain, eat wild vegetables, and drink mountain spring water has a greater chance of being healthy. And for people, only eating healthy things is good for the body. This involves the issue of animal welfare.

In fact, in our country's livestock industry, animal welfare has long been far from a new term, yet it is a sensitive topic. What exactly is animal welfare? What positive role does it play in promoting the development of our country's livestock industry? In today's rapid transformation and rapid development of the livestock industry, how can we balance animal welfare while not affecting the development of the livestock economy? At the 2014 China Animal Welfare and Livestock and Poultry Product Quality and Safety Forum held a few days ago, experts, scholars, enterprises, and related industry personnel from around the world gathered together to express their views and repeatedly discuss and debate the above issues.

Animal welfare urgently needs to be taken seriously

Xi Chunling, president of the International Cooperation Committee of Animal Welfare (hereinafter referred to as ICCAW) of the China Association for the Promotion of International Agricultural Cooperation, one of the organizers of this forum, told reporters that at present the state of animal welfare in our country is worrying. Whether experimental animals, farm animals, or companion animals, and even wild animals that have long been listed as protected subjects, all have more or less problems in their welfare. Compared with developed countries, especially EU member states, the gap is very obvious. Philip Lymbery, CEO of the World Farm Animal Welfare Association, personally visited grassroots farms in some provinces of our country. In his view, the current state of farm animal rearing at the grassroots level in China is quite bad, with such high breeding density and such serious environmental pollution from farming that "it has reached the point where change is unavoidable, and it is very necessary to vigorously promote animal welfare."

So what exactly is animal welfare?

Steve Mclvor, international campaigns director of the World Animal Protection, gave his own understanding. He said: "Animal welfare is an important part of ecological civilization, and its core is to treat animals well. It has five measurement standards: first, to free animals from hunger, thirst, and malnutrition; second, to free animals from the suffering of environmental discomfort; third, to free animals from the torment of disease and injury; fourth, to free animals from fear and sadness; fifth, to let animals have appropriate conditions to freely express their natural behaviors."

"It can be seen that animal welfare is not only closely related to animals, but also concerns human development. But in our country, the importance of animal welfare is currently not fully taken seriously, and this situation urgently needs improvement," emphasized Zhao Zhonghua, chief representative of the World Animal Protection in China.

Let standards regulate animal welfare

If people engaged in animal welfare work were asked in which area they most hope the state will strengthen support for animal welfare, the vast majority would answer legislation or the establishment of standards. Xi Chunling told reporters: "ICCAW was established last year. After its establishment, the association did a great deal of work, such as establishing its own expert committee, absorbing many members devoted to animal welfare, and launching a series of cooperation with international animal welfare organizations. In this process, we found that although the UK Farm Animal Welfare Committee proposed the five basic principles of animal welfare very early (as described above by Steve Mclvor), in the specific implementation process, based on China's basic national conditions, there still needs to be an objective and fair animal welfare standard to ensure that animal welfare is effectively implemented."

Therefore, in May this year, the Farm Animal Welfare Requirements: Pigs was officially released, scientifically explaining welfare-oriented pig farming from aspects such as feed and drinking water, farming environment, farming management, health plans, transportation, slaughter, cutting and processing, and records and traceability.

"This standard was jointly drafted by the association and the Fangyuan Mark Certification Group. It is the first standard issued in our country's series of farm animal welfare standards, and also our country's first standard specifically safeguarding farm animal welfare, filling a major gap in domestic standardized farming," Xi Chunling introduced. In order to fully combine China's national conditions and connect with reality, the association convened experts, scholars, and enterprise representatives from the front lines of farming from all over the country to fully discuss the content of the standard, and repeatedly went deep into the front lines of farming for visits and research.

"Now, in order to further promote animal welfare so that it takes root in our country, another standard, Farm Animal Welfare Requirements: Beef Cattle, also passed review on October 12, and the first draft of Farm Animal Welfare Requirements: Mutton Sheep has also been completed," said Wang Tianyi, a department head of the Fangyuan Mark Certification Group. "This is systematic work, and we will advance it together with the association. But on the basis of improving relevant standards, we more hope to see these standards well implemented, so that they become a model leading the development of animal welfare in China."

Find the balance point between animal welfare and the livestock economy

No matter how much is said, the final implementation of animal welfare still depends on enterprises. But in the process of implementing animal welfare, enterprises inevitably have all kinds of concerns, because in addition to paying time costs, enterprises also need to pay relatively high production costs. Many enterprises are unwilling to bear these seemingly extra costs in production. In response, Steve Mclvor said: "This phenomenon does not only occur in Chinese enterprises; other countries have similar situations. The relationship between animal welfare and economic returns is not either-or. For example, if the breeding density in a chicken farm decreases or the chickens are free-range, the number of chickens raised will decrease, but this can reduce the possibility of chickens getting sick, and the quality of the chickens will also improve. If publicity is increased at the marketing level, the market may become larger, and a better price can be sold. As far as cost is concerned, a shorter transportation process will increase investment in slaughterhouses, but it will likewise reduce the cost of transporting live animals, because long-distance transportation requires more trucks and so on."

"This requires us, in the process of implementing animal welfare, to find the balance point between animal welfare and the livestock economy," said Ren Tongsu, director of the State-Operated Jiangsu Donghai Breeding Pig Farm. It is reported that throughout the entire breeding process of Huai pigs, this farm advocates healthy farming and welfare pig raising, from "infrastructure construction such as pig house environment and pen structure" to "farming techniques such as not clipping teeth, not docking tails, providing large amounts of green feed, and using floor pads," and further to entertainment toys such as "hanging rings and hanging boards," all strictly operating and implementing according to the basic needs of Huai pigs in their unique living habits such as "life, environment, hygiene, behavior, and psychology."

"Our farming philosophy is 'pigs happy, I'm happy! Pigs blessed, I'm blessed!' When pigs are raised well, the meat is good; when the meat is good, there is no worry about selling it. You get what you pay for, and our profits have not decreased but increased," Ren Tongsu said happily.

Also attending the forum were well-known industry enterprises such as Sanmenxia Chuying Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd., Bayannur Fuchuan Feed Technology Co., Ltd., and Hunchun Jixing Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd., all of which are practitioners of welfare farming. In sharing their experience, everyone agreed that in the process of strictly implementing animal welfare farming, although production costs are relatively high, most of the products produced will occupy the domestic high-end market, and because animal welfare farming has been implemented, they have also broken through foreign trade barriers and can smoothly export their products abroad.

"We must learn to take the long view and not fixate only on small immediate gains. Although it looks now like a bit more money has been invested, doing business emphasizes the long term, and calculated over the long term, it is certainly worthwhile," said Wang Guizhi, chairman of Hunchun Jixing Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd., frankly.