Pork producers continue progress toward animal welfare assessment

Pork producers across the United States and Canada are making major strides in developing on-farm animal welfare assessment systems say two industry spokespeople speaking to the Banff Pork Seminar, January 20 to 23.

The National Pork Board (NPB) in the U.S. started its Swine Welfare Assurance Program (SWAP) in 2000 as a producer-driven initiative to objectively measure pig welfare, says Dr. Paul Sundberg, NPB Vice President of Science and Technology. The Canadian Pork Council (CPC), the national body representing pork producer organizations across Canada, formed an animal care working group to address the issue in 2002, says Penny Lawlis, an Animal Care Specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food.

Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of animal welfare and the food production system is asking for assurances that animals raised for food are handled in appropriate ways, they say.

The SWAP initiative is based strictly on science, says Sundberg. U.S. pork producers have clearly stated they fully support adding to the scientific knowledge on swine welfare. Their position is that animal welfare guidelines developed without a sound scientific basis puts the welfare of the animal at risk as well as the sustainability of the producers' operation.

SWAP accepted that there are three indications of animal welfare and these should be measured together: behaviour, performance and health, and physiology. With the assistance of national and international experts in these fields, they developed a Swine Welfare Indexing System to measure these indicators. It was tested in 2001 and 2002.

The goal was a system applicable to all production systems, says Sundberg. This led to a voluntary educational and assessment program field-tested in 2002 to ensure it was objective. To help producers implement SWAP and have their sites undergo assessments, special personnel are now being trained as Certified SWAP Educators. Each Educator will be required to be trained, write an exam and meet specific standards.

For example, Educators must have a degree in animal science or equivalent, two years of recent, documented swine production experience, and pass the SWAP exam. For a site to be SWAP certified, an initial assessment must be completed by a Certified SWAP Educator. To remain SWAP certified, the process must be repeated every three years.

The industry believes there are significant benefits to this type of producer-led initiative, says Sundberg. Besides helping maintain current market access and open new ones, it can help producers evaluate animal performance and welfare over time. Perhaps most importantly, it demonstrates the U.S. pork producers' commitment to the welfare of their animals.

The CPC model used a similar approach, says Lawlis. It used a HACCP model to identify critical control points relative to the vulnerability of pigs, the interaction of pigs and their environment, and the interaction between pigs and stockpeople.

The goal was to find important critical control points, but not have too many things to measure, says Lawlis. At the same time, these critical control points needed to involve a measurable parameter. A review of existing Codes of Practice was undertaken to explore the points that could be measured at the farm level. Environmental parameters included things such as size of stalls, feeding and drinking facilities, and space allowance. Animal behaviour parameters record the animal's reaction to its environment, using behaviour, health and physiology.

The CPC has developed a test version of this on-farm assessment, tentatively called Swine Animal Care Assessment (SACA). It will be tested in commercial herds across Canada to determine if the indicators work at farm level. The goal is to have the producer test this assessment booklet in a practical setting. "It's not a pass or fail, it's intended as continual improvement," says Lawlis. Producers will use the assessment booklet as an overview of welfare in their herds, and as a basis for hiring and training staff, and for purchasing new equipment.

"The CPC animal care working group is committed to providing Canadian pork producers with a simple tool for evaluating animal welfare on his or her farm," says Lawlis. "Many of the practical aspects of the program such as who will do the auditing and how often observations need to be recorded, still need to be determined through open dialogue with producers and other stakeholders."

The Banff Pork Seminar attracts more than 700 people from across Canada, the U.S. and Europe and is considered a leading international Seminar.

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