Animal health and welfare

At the time of preparation of this article the consumption of meat in the UK for 1995 and 1996 was estimated to be about 3.6Mtyr V thus there is a considerable demand to produce it economically with minimal adverse impact on the environment by maintaining good animal health and welfare. 

The effects of drugs in animals are usually concentration dependent and are also often animal species and site-of-action dependent " " " thus the compounds may be present naturally in diets at low levels and produce no obvious adverse effects, either on the animal, gut microflora, meat, milk or eggs. The main purpose of the use of drugs in animal feeds is to improve the animal health and welfare and often to improve growth at minimum cost to the producer.In the case of naturally produced compounds that may occur in the feedstuff s of animals, these compounds may impair animal health and performance as well as cause im-... 

Vaarst, M, Wemelsfelder, F, Seabrook, M, Boivin, X and Idel, A (2004) The role of humans in the management of organic herds , in Vaarst, M, Roderick, S, Lund, V and Lockeretz, W. Animal Health and Welfare in Organic Agriculture, CABI, Wallingford, UK, 419 pp. 

Most organic poultry production is currently based on the same breeding stock as conventional farming and the principal problems (see above) are the same. The discussion group at the fourth NAHWOA Workshop (Network for Animal Health and Welfare in Organic Agriculture) identified the following main problems (Hirt et al 2001) ... 

Optimising product and process quality (animal health and welfare, environmentally friendly production, naturalness)... 

Intensive pig production systems have shown severe negative impacts on animal health and welfare (reviewed by Borell et al., 1997 Rauw et al., 1998). Further constraints of intensive production are expected owing to the dramatic effects on environmental pollution caused by a high nutrient input... 

For these reasons the indicator category health and welfare has been enhanced, and now considers animal health and welfare and quality of the produced food. 

Although the experts assessments vary enormously by country, the mean values show that the most important subjects with respect to the environmental impacts of organic farming are landscape, soil, ground and surface water and biodiversity. Climate as well as air and energy uses are, however, assessed to be of only minor importance. Only two experts identified animal health and welfare to be of special importance for organic farming in this context. 

Short, N., Roderick, S. and M. Hovi (1997). Animal health and welfare on organic farms. Elm Earm Research Bulletin 27 4-6. 

Panel on food additives, flavorings, processing aids, and materials in contact with food Panel on animal health and welfare... 

Hovi, M. and Baars, T. (eds) 2001. Breeding and Feeding for Animal Health and Welfare in Organic Livestock Systems. NAHWOA (Network for Animal Health and Welfare in Organic Agriculture) Workshop. 24-27 March 2001. Wageningen, the Netherlands. 

Lund, V. and Algers, B. 2003. Research on animal health and welfare in organic farming - a literature review. Livestock Production Science 80 55-68. 

Feeding for animal health and welfare the method of feeding... 

In addition to the composition of the feed ration and the high quality of feed, clean drinking water should be included in the considerations regarding feeding when animal health and welfare is a primary goal of the herd, as well as the method of feeding. In Box 7.2, an example... 

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