The Animal Affairs Council (RDA) will develop a recommendation to improve animal welfare and animal health within the framework of circular farming. Outgoing Agriculture Secretary Carola Scoutin has asked Agriculture to do so.
In protecting and continually improving the animal’s well-being and health, the starting point is that adaptations to the animal are disappearing and that breeding systems must match the animal’s needs. In 2020, the RDA released its “Animal Welfare in Circular Agriculture” view, which recommends setting concrete preconditions for improving and protecting animal welfare and health in circular agriculture.
The Minister now supports this recommendation with one request Opinion About those concrete preconditions. The preconditions for raising livestock in the future, which are appropriate for circular farming, must ensure that the animal lives a positive state of well-being and health.
To this end, it should be clear what are meant by the terms “worthy of animals” and “positive well-being” and what the animal needs to experience a positive well-being. But also what are the measurable parameters to determine whether these needs are being met and how the farming system of the future can meet those needs.
