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Scientists discuss impact of research on welfare and food safety policies

Scientists involved in EU-funded research projects joined with representatives of the European Commission, consumer and welfare groups for the first time on 23 April to discuss how research can help with the implementation and development of innovative animal welfare and food ...

Scientists involved in EU-funded research projects joined with representatives of the European Commission, consumer and welfare groups for the first time on 23 April to discuss how research can help with the implementation and development of innovative animal welfare and food safety policies. The workshop identified areas for future research, including basic welfare research into pain and stress and areas that impact upon the Common agricultural policy (CAP). Scientific officer John Claxton from DG Research told CORDIS News that the consumer's viewpoint must not be forgotten and that the Commission is aware of the need to use research to discover whether high welfare standards and high quality are linked. More attention should also be given to the flow of information between scientists, producers and consumers, the workshop participants agreed, highlighting the need for a way of measuring this flow of information. The Commission is currently supporting projects directly related to animal welfare with 7.5 million euro of finding, in addition to several animal health projects containing aspects of welfare research. Research has included projects on the transport of cattle over long distances, animal welfare in organic farming, feather pecking in poultry, veal calf production, genes associated with stress in pigs, locomotory dysfunction in turkeys and consumer concerns. The Commission has contributed 1.8 million euro to a project under the Fifth Framework programme examining the effects of transporting cattle over different distances. The project demonstrates that significant physiological and biochemical reactions, which are markers of stress, occur during the loading and unloading of animals. The project has also shown that although cattle get used to long journeys to some extent, they develop an energy deficiency after several hours of transport, making regular breaks a necessity. The project has also highlighted differences between cows, bulls and steers in their reaction to transport, further complicating the issue of making standard regulations on their transportation. A project carried out under the Fourth Framework programme discovered means of reducing feather pecking in poultry. From 2012, traditional battery cages will be banned in the EU, but the increased risk of feather pecking has been a major obstacle to the adoption of alternative housing systems. Feather pecking consists of pecking and pulling at the feathers of other birds. It can damage plumage, impose an economic burden through increased feed intake, injure the birds and sometimes lead to the painful death of birds. Current remedial measures such as beak trimming and low lighting have been criticised on welfare grounds. The project demonstrated that a high degree of sociability between chickens is inversely associated with feather pecking and selection for sociability helps to reduce the problem. In addition, environmental enrichment with polypropylene string was shown to reduce pecking by encouraging the direction of preening behaviour at the string. Research into animal welfare will also continue in the next research Framework programme, FP6, where projects will look into animal welfare as a part of policy related research, with the aim of providing healthy food supplies and exploring new fields of research.