New EU welfare resource

The European Commission will launch a reference centre for the welfare of farmed poultry in 2020.

The reference centres aim to improve the enforcement of the legislation of animal welfare by providing technical support and assistance to member states in carrying out official controls for animal welfare.

They also aim to disseminate best practice by sharing scientific and technical expertise, carrying out studies and developing methods for improving and assessing the welfare level of animals.

A similar centre for pigs launched late last year and is known as the EURCAW-Pigs resource. It is a consortium between Wageningen Livestock Research (the Netherlands), the Friedrich Loeffler Institute (Germany) and the Department of Animal Science at Aarhus University (Denmark).

The broiler and egg equivalent will be published early next year and is a consortium between Agence Nationale de Sécurité Sanitaire de l’Alimentation (France), the Institut de Recerca I Tecnologia Agroalimentàries (Spain), Aarhus Universitet – Institut for Husdyrvidenskab (Denmark), and Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Lombardia e dell’Emilia Romagna (Italy).