Good animal welfare is more than preventing problems. The 'next step' is positive animal welfare. Discussions for a covenant on animal welfare livestock farming will start soon. Integral: other challenges like nitrogen are taken into account. Part of the policy of the new coalition government is this Covenant on Animal Dignified Livestock Farming. The House will receive a letter from agriculture minister Henk Staghouwer about it after the summer recess, says Jeannette van de Ven, portfolio holder Healthy Animals at LTO. A broad committee will be set up to which LTO, POV, Avined, ZuivelNL, Dierenbescherming and Caring Farmers, among others, have been invited. The committee is headed by politician Bram van Ojik and is to prepare the content of the covenant. All parties are aware of the importance of an integrated approach. But how exactly the accents will be placed, time will tell.' The covenant is not only about animal welfare, but also about combating zoonoses and limiting emissions. We have to find consensus on that together. Everyone will have to add water to the wine; no one will be completely satisfied,' says Jeanette van de Ven.
The Council on Animal Affairs released a view as early as 2021 with six guiding principles for animal-worthy livestock farming. See: https://edepot.wur.nl/557506
All red meat slaughterhouses affiliated to the COV must sign a contract with an independent animal welfare specialist. This secures animal welfare on the farm. All employees who come into contact with live animals are also retrained annually, reports the Central Organisation for the Meat Sector (COV). The animal welfare specialist knows the farm and regularly examines how employees ensure animal welfare. This specialist also helps the company draw up areas for improvement and makes an annual report.
Further, all employees are being retrained, which includes the use of camera footage of this red meat slaughterhouse. Both additional agreements on ensuring animal welfare at these slaughterhouses are contained in the code of conduct,version 2.0 dated 07 April 2022, which has been drawn up. See: https://assets.cov.nl/p/4227073/none/COV%20Gedragscode%20vleessector%20v2_0%20formeel%20bekrachtigd.pdf
Summer 2021, the Central Organisation for the Meat Sector (COV) and its members launched the initiative 'Towards sustainable labour in the meat sector' after talks with the then Ministers of LNV and SZW, trade unions and animal protection. On its website, COV provides an update.
In the initiative, COV and its members aim to "employ as many employees working with live animals as possible. " This applies to new employees in a critical production position and to employees who have been working at the company in a production position for more than two years. A condition for this is that they are permanently resident in the Netherlands and have their own accommodation in the immediate vicinity."
See also: https://cov.nl/nieuws/cov-nieuws/nieuwsbericht?newsitemid=7363624960
During the Council, Denmark presented a position paper on behalf of the Vught Group countries (Denmark, Belgium, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands) on updating rules on live animal transport; part of the Animal Welfare Regulation. The focus of the position paper is on the
revision of rules (making them sharper/stricter) and enforcement (making them more concrete and enforceable).
The Commission welcomed the broad support for the review of the current legislation, which it said is also dated. It will take an integrated look at the different aspects of animal welfare in transport (transport times, transport to 3e countries (e.g. ban certain countries), space during transport, (digital means of) control and enforcement. The Commission hopes to present a proposal for amendments to the transport regulation (EU Regulation 1/2005) by the end of 2023. As part of a scientific underpinning, which many member states requested, the Commission has asked EFSA to come up with opinions. These are expected in the autumn.
