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Animal Welfare Indicators at the SlaughterHouse

Project description

Innovative tools for better animal welfare for broiler chickens and fattening pigs

Health and welfare of food-producing animals is very important. The EU-funded aWISH project aims to introduce a cost-efficient system for welfare assessment and improvement of broiler chickens and fattening pigs on a large scale in Europe. The project focuses on developing an automated solution for monitoring welfare on-farm, during (un)loading, transport and slaughter. The results will be tested and validated in six slaughterhouses and their supply chains across Europe. Moreover, an Animal Welfare Indicator Catalogue and nine Best Practice Guides will be developed to improve key welfare issues. Also the socio-economic and environmental impact of the animal welfare improvement strategies will be investigated, with the inclusion of the needs, perceptions and barriers of all actors from farm to fork.

Objective

The objective of aWISH is to develop and offer a cost-efficient solution to evaluate and improve the welfare of meat-producing livestock at a large scale, across Europe. This approach will be developed and evaluated in close collaboration with all actors involved, from primary producers up to policy makers and citizens. At the heart of the aWISH solution is the automated monitoring at the slaughterhouse of complementary animal-based indicators for monitoring welfare on-farm, during (un)loading, transport and slaughter. Besides that, existing or routinely collected data (slaughterhouse data, antibiotics usage, farm data, etc.) and needed technologies on-farm or on-transport to complement the measurements at slaughter will be exploited. Piloting and development activities will be done in 6 broiler chicken and fattening pig production chains across Europe (FR, PL, ES, NL, AT, RS), using a lean multi-actor approach, in order to test and validate the project results. Novel sensor technologies and AI algorithms will be developed, and a feedback tool and interface will allow each actor in the chain to get direct feedback of each batch, visualize trends and benchmark animal welfare outcomes. An Animal Welfare Indicator Catalogue will disseminate all validated indicators and standardized data collection methods. From the pilot data, animal welfare initiatives taken at operator, chain, regional or national level will be assessed alongside their environmental and socio-economic impact at operator and sector level. Next to that, 9 Best Practice Guides will be developed to improve key welfare issues in pigs and broilers, and to help external actors deploy the aWISH technologies and feedback tool. How the feedback loop guides and motivates each party to take actions to improve animal welfare will be tested in a longitudinal study, and the needs, perceptions and barriers of all actors from farm to fork incl. the consumer will be researched to maximize impact of the aWISH results.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) HORIZON-CL6-2021-FARM2FORK-01

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Coordinator

EIGEN VERMOGEN VAN HET INSTITUUT VOOR LANDBOUW- EN VISSERIJONDERZOEK
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 212 658,84
Address
BURG. VAN GANSBERGHELAAN 92 BUS 1
9820 Merelbeke
Belgium

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Region
Vlaams Gewest Prov. Oost-Vlaanderen Arr. Gent
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 212 658,84

Participants (29)

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