New animal welfare database puts worldwide information at the farmer's fingertips

by SUSAN MANN

Led by Ontario Pork, the Ontario Livestock Commodity groups (made up of the Ontario Farm Animal Council (OFAC) plus the livestock commodity groups) commissioned the Prairie Swine Centre to put together and maintain the database. Other partners involved include the Canadian Animal Health Institute and the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It's hoped that funding to maintain the database will come from the National Livestock Environmental Initiative.

Located near Saskatoon, the Prairie Swine Centre is a non-profit research and technology corporation with expertise in four disciplines -- behaviour, nutrition, engineering and environment. Its mandate includes research, technology transfer and education, while its mission is to be the centre of excellence in research, technology transfer and education directed at efficient, sustainable pork production in Canada.

The animal welfare database is similar to the environmental database also located at the Prairie Swine Centre. That database, in place for four years, is available for anyone to get information through the Centre's Web site about environmental issues, such as odour, manure or water.

The database is designed to be a comprehensive collection of information on animal welfare and is available to anyone. Though also published in booklet form, it's mainly a Web-based resource. Made up of three components, it contains research from around the world on welfare, care and animal rights issues. In addition to a general introduction, there's a chapter on each of the species -- dairy, beef, veal, layers, broilers, turkeys, sheep and horses. A third section deals with general subjects, such as pain, codes of practice and legislation.

A technical scientific review committee, made up of experts in animal welfare and care, checked each of the chapters to ensure that they were accurate and contained information truly representative of research being done.

Keith Robbins, Ontario Pork's communications director, describes the database as one-stop shopping where farmers can go on the Web to find the latest research instead of having to wade through scientific journals. Or if they're looking for niche market opportunities, they can find the corporate animal welfare policies of restaurant chains, such as Wendy's.

"We're trying to make this database as scientific as possible," Robbins says, adding that some of the research is very flattering to the animal industry, while some shows where more work is needed. "Our intent was to make this an unbiased resource that everyone could use."

One of the more obvious uses for the new database is to help farmers find research on new facility designs.

But pork producer Ron Douglas believes the database can also help farm groups identify areas in animal care research where more work needs to be done. "When it comes to spending producers' research dollars, we should be able to more easily identify an area that probably needs some more research."

Instead of researchers approaching farm groups with research proposals, farm groups can go to them with work they'd like to see done. "It would be more a combination of research projects coming from both sides," he says.

For example, when it comes to housing gestation sows, aggression is a major concern. Housing them separately is a method that has worked well within the industry. Animal rightists have targeted sow stalls so "it's a tool that's probably under greater question throughout the industry than anything else right now," he says.

Helping farmers to plan better
Gordon Coukell, chair of Dairy Farmers of Ontario, also sees the database as a tool commodity groups can use in planning where to spend their research dollars. "From the standpoint of proposals coming to our research committee, we have an easy place to go and see whether this research has been done or whether we need more in this area."

Indirectly, the database will facilitate better decision-making by industry research committees and ensure "we don't have duplication of the same research in two or three different centres just because people are not aware that it's been done someplace else," he explains.

As for farmers, while they can find research on the Internet on, for example, segregated early weaning, it wouldn't be as complete as the information on the animal welfare database.

Farming is becoming more of a science, Douglas believes, and the database will enable farmers to plan better. For example, he's noticed that the industry has become more specialized. But you can't just put specialized feeding and animal care equipment in any old building because it won't work. Animals housed in a segregated early weaning operation need a specially ventilated, heated and environmentally controlled building. To put such equipment in a building without those capabilities won't be good for the animals, the producer or the economics of the operation.

"We used to see some of this equipment getting put into older barns that weren't as draft-free as the newer barns and the animal husbandry is then harder to manage," he says. "This equipment is designed to be used in an environmentally-controlled manner."

Douglas, who was a director on the pork board for 10 years, was one of the people at Ontario Pork who took a keen interest in the database's development, which resulted from a revision of the pork industry's code of practice. When industry representatives were reviewing the code, they began looking at what it should include on animal welfare.

"As we started talking about that, we stumbled on to other things, such as what's being done throughout the world on research on sow aggression or on gestation sows or farrowing units or loose housing," says Douglas. "We tried to identify some of the areas we thought we would be discussing and where we needed some good solid scientific information on what's happened throughout the world."

Douglas, who farms 300 acres and has a 25-sow, farrow-to-finish operation near Wingham in the northeast corner of Huron County, has had a long-standing interest in animal welfare and animal care issues. Currently, he's animal care co-ordinator for Ontario Pork and looks after animals and material used in displays at fairs and exhibitions across Ontario. He also acts as the Ontario pork industry's representative on the Helpline, a service established by OFAC in June 1992 as a way to assist farmers in providing adequate or improved care for their animals and/or in following practices that meet industry standards. On the national level, he represents Canadian pork producers on the Canadian Pork Council's expert committee of animal welfare.

No right or wrong way
Ontario Pork director Liz Samis says she could have used something like the database when building a new nursery barn a number of years ago. She sees it as a useful tool for farmers to help them adopt new technology. "We're the ones that work with the animals every day and we need to have the best technology available," she says. "I don't think there's any one system that's perfect for the animals because the animals are so diverse."

On Liz and Reg Samis' 275-sow, farrow-to-finish farm in Wellington County, there are three systems: dry sow stalls, group pens on straw and groups of sows with no straw. She believes farmers will develop several housing systems, not just one system, that will enable them to meet the needs of the animals and cater to those needing some special attention.

Douglas believes there are many different ways to house and raise animals and there's no right or wrong way. "I would say 75 per cent of the way an animal is housed is really what the producer himself prefers to work with. One guy could make a loose housing setup work really well, while the next guy could probably not make it work as well."

Chicken Farmers of Ontario director John Maaskant also believes that, once chicken farmers are made aware of the database, they will use it and Bob Dobson, a Cobden area beef farmer and past co-chair of the animal care and environment committee of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, concurs. Ten years ago, a resource like this wouldn't have been used by farmers, he says, but now they are more familiar with using the Internet and he thinks producers will use the resource.

"I'm hoping that it will also be a good, reliable and credible source of information as to the care and handling of livestock," says Dobson, who hopes that the database could be used to counter the misinformation being spread by animal rights groups.

"So often, when there are misconceptions out there, they become facts if they are repeated enough times," adds egg farmer Bryan Durst, who is the egg board's director on the Ontario Farm Animal Council board. "If this is a tool that anyone can use to find out what really is going on, then it'll help."

In selecting what material to include on the database, "we focused on the past nine years," with 90 per cent of the research being from the past five years, explains Lee Whittington, information services manager at the Prairie Swine Centre. In addition, the committee that oversees the database looked at a target number of articles per species.

"We tried to reflect in advance the relative proportion of the resources we would put into each species," he says. There are 50 articles on general animal welfare and as many as 100 on some individual species.

Research from around the world is summarized on the database so farmers will get the most out of it. For example, says Whittington, "it looks at what we know about housing large groups of pigs. Traditionally we've housed 10 or 12 at a time. So now we're housing groups of 50 or 100 or 200. But what do we know about their interaction and the way that we should be managing them differently than in small groups?"

PhD research scientists in applied ethology (the study of animal behaviour) reviewed the research, summarized the articles and decided what to include. Scientists focused on the most relevant papers on animal welfare, says Harold Gonyou, scientific co-ordinator for the database at the Prairie Swine Centre. "Many articles out there are simply a commentary on welfare and were not scientific articles. We would tend to drop these unless they were making a real contribution in terms of explaining what welfare is."

The database is housed at the Prairie Swine Centre because it is the home of the only really comprehensive applied ethology program in Canada. Also the Centre already has the experience and the technical capabilities to put together and maintain a readily accessible database together with the environmental one that's already been in place for about four years.

The database is being set up in part because "welfare is going to become a bigger issue for the animal industry than it has in the past," says Whittington. "One of the ways to address that is to make sure we understand the science behind animal welfare." And if farmers apply the most current science on their farms, that will diffuse some of the criticisms.

Even though some of the buyers of farm products, such as restaurant chains like McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King, now have animal welfare advisory boards and animal welfare programs, the database project began long before those were put in place. But it's still seen as a proactive approach by the animal industries to ensure they have access to current science. In developing this database, Canada is leading the way. In fact, there is nothing as comprehensive in any other jurisdiction.

"In the case of the environment, there are ones being developed in a couple of spots in the United States, but they're much smaller and not nearly as broad-based as ours," Whittington says.

The database can be accessed through Ontario Pork's Web site or through the Prairie Swine Centre's site at: www.prairieswine.com. BF

by DON STONEMAN

Popular fast food restaurants have been among the first to demand changes to the ways that suppliers raise meat and produce eggs. They've already cracked down on the issue of feeding meat and bone meal to livestock because of the beef debacle in Europe, which hurt profits there badly. So far, however, their effect on how farmers raise animals in Canada has been limited.

McDonald's International ($37.1 billion US in sales in the first 11 months of 2001) says food safety is paramount, but right after that is quality. "McDonald's believes treating animals with care and respect is an integral part of an overall quality assurance program that makes good business sense," says a statement published on the McDonald's International website.

At its annual shareholder meeting in 2000, McDonald's USA announced that a "blue ribbon" panel would advise the company on animal welfare issues. The panel members include Temple Grandin, the world-renowned animal-handling expert. McDonald's says she has been the company's chief consultant on animal handling matters since 1996.

McDonald's USA remains vague about its specifications on its website, merely stating that its first major animal welfare initiative was to require suppliers to keep hens in larger cages, stop beak trimming and end the practice of moulting, a way of restricting feed to eventually increase production. The McDonald's Canada website remains silent on the issue.

Burger King (2000 sales of $11.4 billion US) has taken the same route as McDonald's, but on a grander scale. Last June, the company announced "industry-leading guidelines and audits for the humane handling of animals." Burger King promised to require suppliers to increase laying hen cage size to 75 square inches per bird, supply at least two drinkers per cage, as well as continuous flow feeders. Ammonia in air in barns is not to exceed a daily average of 25 parts per million, which is tighter than current industry standards. The National Chicken Council agreed to a Burger King request to upgrade its standards and cattle branding will be discouraged along with "severe ear notching."

In the area of sow gestation stalls, Burger King says it will "encourage and support the development of a body of scientific knowledge around the handling and care of gestating sows" and will "begin purchasing pork from producers employing these alternatives successfully as a way of supporting the creation of this body of knowledge."

In the United States, Burger King standards are to be in place by Mar. 31 of this year. Auditing procedures will be ready by July 1 and Burger King will publish an annual report on the Handling of Food Animals for the Burger King System. The report will appear on a new website devoted to animal handling. If and when these standards will apply to Canada isn't clear. Burger King buys nearly 17 million pounds of beef in Canada alone annually.

Animal rights groups had pressured both McDonald's and Burger King with highly visible and well-publicized protests outside their restaurants and the same pressure was applied to Wendy's. Last summer, Wendy's, the number three chain ($7.7 billion US in 2000) caved in to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a radical animal rights group that had protested outside its restaurants. It's not known what Wendy's agreed to do, but it has been reported that PETA had demanded unannounced inspections of slaughterhouses by the chain's auditors and improvements in stunning at slaughter plants.

These changes had nothing to do with farmers. However, PETA also demanded a minimum of 72 square inches of cage space per laying hen and air quality guidelines for broiler barns. It's not clear if these changes will apply in Canada as well.

Immediately after its apparent victory at Wendy's in the United States, PETA announced that it would take a run at a supermarket or a chicken restaurant chain.BF