Livestock and production animals contribute significantly to the wellbeing of the human and animal populations and are important in economic and cultural terms.
It is recognised that improvements in farm animal welfare can improve productivity and food safety, and lead to economic benefits.
The way livestock animals are handled, how they are housed or confined, the levels of care and management they are given, how they are transported, and how they are slaughtered or euthanased are all critical areas for best practice animal welfare, the owners of the animals, as well as those who manage and use livestock products.
The Livestock and Production Animals Working Group was responsible for developing and implementing projects to ensure the consistent and sustainable improvement of livestock and production animal welfare.
Challenges
The challenges to improving the welfare of livestock and production animals include:
- the need to develop a national legislative and enforcement framework that ensures consistent animal welfare outcomes
- the need to convert model codes of practice for animal welfare in farmed animals into Australian standards and guidelines
- the need to examine quality assurance programs as a vehicle for applying agreed animal welfare standards, including identification of objective measures and performance indicators
- the need to support research and development for continuous improvement of animal welfare standards
