Animal Welfare Task Force Releases Guidance Documents

by Tanya Brouwers

The new Canadian national organic standard requires that livestock operators adhere to husbandry practices that maintain high levels of animal health and welfare in conjunction with organic goals to improve environmental health. There is concern among members of the organic community, however, that certain non-prescriptive statements within the standard will allow some producers, constrained either economically or by a lack of knowledge, to merely ‘meet the law’. In an age when the educated consumer demands that the organic animals they eat have lived a life of reasonable quality, any organic livestock practices that fall short of these expectations will surely have a negative effect on the Canadian organic industry. In response, the Animal Welfare Task Force (AWTF) has published a series of organic livestock management guidance documents and fact sheets. These publications will help farmers to both better understand the standard and, as the AWTF mandate dictates, “to improve animal care on organic farms.”

In 2005, Ralph Martin, the Director of the Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada (OACC), assembled a subcommittee of the Expert Committee on Organic Agriculture. These individuals were interested in the health and welfare of animals on organic farms and formed the Animal Welfare Task Force. Past members include Terri Giacomazzi, an extension specialist with BC Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, Jeff Rushen and Anne Marie de Passille, researchers at the Pacific Agri-Food Research centre in Agassiz and Joe Stookey, a Professor at the University of Saskatchewan. Current members are Ralph Martin (OACC), Anne Malleau (Whole Foods) and Marina von Keyserlink (UBC Animal Welfare Program); Lawrence Andres and Sandy Lowndes, organic livestock producers; Hubert Karreman, an holistic practitioner of veterinarian medicine; Anne Macey, an inspector and writer for Canadian Organic Grower publications Danielle Brault, an extension agent of the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture MAPAQ; Jane Morrigan, an instructor at Nova Scotia Agricultural College and Derek Haley, an Assistant Professor at the University of Guelph.

The goal of the Animal Welfare Task Force, through conversation, input from qualified parties and operating by consensus, is to strengthen the Canadian organic standard as it pertains to issues of animal welfare and to close the gap between the livestock producer and scientific evidence about how to best care for animals. Currently, the Farm Animal Welfare section of the OACC website will serve as the space where producers, both organic and conventional, and researchers can access and benefit from information on animal ethics, numerous animal welfare standards and eight fact sheets that cover a range of topics from heat stress in ruminants to reducing the risk of feather pecking in laying hens.

The site also provides interested parties with a series of guidance documents that will assist producers, inspectors, extension agents and certifications bodies to better understand what is required in the livestock portion of the Canadian organic standard as it relates, specifically, to dairy cattle, beef cattle, sheep and goats, and pigs and poultry.

The growing numbers of Canadian organic livestock producers are subject, more than most, to the intense scrutiny of an educated public keen to know where animal products come from. Willing to pay a price premium for the package of meat labelled ‘organic’, these consumers expect that slaughtered animals had the benefit of living on a farm that enforced the strictest standards of animal care and welfare. In addition, a growing number of organic and conventional livestock farmers appreciate that a higher quality of life for their animals improves their own lives as well when practical animal welfare guidelines are followed.

Unfortunately, as more producers transition to organic production they are faced with a standard that provides little more than succinctly stated expectations and none of the ‘how’ to meet them. The AWTF, recognizing the limited guidance potential of the standard has created this series of publications to help farmers create livestock environments that nurture animal health and natural behaviour.

The hope is that livestock producers, inspectors and other members of the organic community will move beyond the mindset of ‘meeting the standard’ to adopting and promoting the philosophies and principles of organic agriculture that hold all living creatures, plant or animal, in the highest regard.

 

Tanya Brouwers is a Consultant for the OACC. Please send comments or questions by phone to 902-893-7256 or by email to oacc@nsac.ca.


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Posted October 2009