Promoting animal welfare

Animal welfare has become a hot topic of public interest in recent years. At this year's session of the National People's Congress, some deputies suggested an animal welfare law be made because the export of animals and animal products will be affected if animal welfare is not guaranteed.

Animal welfare is often considered to cause higher production costs and lower profits in animal production. However, this generally does not have to be true. In many cases, animal welfare practices actually help increase profits. We all know there is a distinct relationship between animals' good health and animal performance in production. Many practices, while improving animal welfare, improve animal health, animal biological functioning, and hence animal productivity. In a word, comfort and cleanliness pay big dividends. In this case, high standards for animal welfare are investments that can generate the highest profit. In other cases, to be sure, requiring producers to change production methods to adapt to animal welfare standards would increase costs. For example, larger space requirements mean that either more land is needed or fewer animals must be kept. Although minimum space must be provided to avoid overcrowding, to achieve animal health and productivity, larger space requirements far beyond what’s needed to ensure normal biological functioning are impractical in China.

Furthermore, demanding immediate compliance with some standards, for example, animals, when being slaughtered, should be isolated to ensure that other animals cannot see the killing procedure, would be difficult to enforce. But this does not mean nothing can be done with animal welfare. Rather it dictates that the constraints of developing countries should and must be taken into account when setting minimum standards for animal welfare at an international level. If comprehensive legislation on animal welfare is unrealistic, then some general principles regarding animal welfare might be added into, say, animal husbandry law, which is being drafted at present. As well, some specific provisions may gradually be inserted into existing relevant laws.

It must be admitted that animal welfare is a complex issue with important scientific, ethical, economic, cultural and political dimensions. Animal health is a vital component of animal welfare, but not the sole determinant

Source: www. caaa.org.cn