That
steak on your plate graduated from Bovine University.
To attain a degree, it is imperative that students live
a life of misery. On the big day, during the graduation
ceremony, they are stunned, skinned, hung upside down, and
bled to death. How nice. Who looks after them?
The
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
and the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC)
are the two leading independent advisory boards established
by the government in the UK to monitor and ensure high standards
of animal health and welfare. It is their duty to advise
and give recommendations to the Government any changes that
are necessary through the use of Welfare Codes.
The
existing code for Cattle, published in 1983, will be replaced
in early 2003. The new code, which will implement a few
hundred new recommendations, serves the purpose of encouraging
all those who care for cattle to adopt the highest standards
of husbandry. Through the use of a set of firm propositions,
known as the “Five Freedoms”,
a core structure is defined regarding an animal’s
basic needs and implies ideal states rather than standards
which promote good animal welfare.
How
do these codes work? How are they enforced? Nick Shearman
of DEFRA explains.
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