Periodic Reporting for period 1 - aWISH (Animal Welfare Indicators at the SlaughterHouse)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-11-01 bis 2024-04-30
Animal welfare in livestock production is an important topic for the well-being of animals, the entire livestock sector, policy makers, and citizens. Broilers and pigs, the main meat-producing animals in the EU and worldwide, are the farm animals with the most animal welfare concerns expressed by EU citizens. EU legislation regulates farm animal welfare through resource-based measures, but there is a need for a large scale automatic monitoring of animal welfare using animal-based measures.
Animal-based indicators assessing the outcome of resources and management on the animals themselves are a good alternative and direct way for evaluating animal welfare. The slaughterhouse is a suitable place for assessing a large number of animals, as they come from various farms, which allows for high labour efficiency and better biosecurity. However, continuous and objective monitoring of outcome-indicators of each slaughter batch by humans is challenging without slowing down the line speed. Rapid technological development and artificial intelligence can overcome these limitations.
The aWISH project focuses on large-scale, automated welfare monitoring of animal-based indicators at the slaughterhouse, that are related to welfare on-farm, during (un)loading, transport, and slaughter. Novel sensors will be developed and tested to measure these indicators, enabling continuous and automatic data collection. The aim is to use this data for feedback and advice on best practices to those responsible for the broilers and pigs throughout their lifetime (farmer, catching team, transporter, slaughterhouse). This approach will be developed and evaluated in close collaboration with all actors involved, from the livestock farmers up to policy makers and citizens.
Animal-based indicators assessing the outcome of resources and management on the animals themselves are a good alternative and direct way for evaluating animal welfare. The slaughterhouse is a suitable place for assessing a large number of animals, as they come from various farms, which allows for high labour efficiency and better biosecurity. However, continuous and objective monitoring of outcome-indicators of each slaughter batch by humans is challenging without slowing down the line speed. Rapid technological development and artificial intelligence can overcome these limitations.
The aWISH project focuses on large-scale, automated welfare monitoring of animal-based indicators at the slaughterhouse, that are related to welfare on-farm, during (un)loading, transport, and slaughter. Novel sensors will be developed and tested to measure these indicators, enabling continuous and automatic data collection. The aim is to use this data for feedback and advice on best practices to those responsible for the broilers and pigs throughout their lifetime (farmer, catching team, transporter, slaughterhouse). This approach will be developed and evaluated in close collaboration with all actors involved, from the livestock farmers up to policy makers and citizens.
The project’s core consists of six European pilots with multi-disciplinary teams including slaughterhouses, technology providers, researchers, and end-users like supplying farmers and transporters. These pilots are to develop and test the novel animal welfare monitoring technologies, test the aWISH feedback loop and collect data and insights for the project results. The pilots are divided into four first phase pilots leading the technology development and two second phase pilots as external validation sites.
aWISH started to work on the key developments towards the specific objectives in the project, including the installations at the first phase pilots. The main achievements are the following:
• Review the state-of-the-art animal welfare indicators for pigs and broilers, on farm, loading, transport and at slaughter;
• Review the state-of-the-art technologies to measure each animal welfare indicator;
• Implement and install the novel technologies of various technology readiness level (TRL) in the first phase pilots, leading to 24 installations at the moment;
• Increase the TRL levels of the novel technologies from TRL 2-8 (mean 4) to TRL 2-9 (mean 5-6);
• Set the requirements for the data platform and feedback tool, whilst designing a first mock-up version;
• Develop standardized data collection protocols to collect the necessary inputs for animal welfare, environmental and socio-economic evaluation for the supplying companies in each pilot;
• Setting up an expert panel with 74 members to date, in order to create a participative approach with all stakeholders involved.
aWISH started to work on the key developments towards the specific objectives in the project, including the installations at the first phase pilots. The main achievements are the following:
• Review the state-of-the-art animal welfare indicators for pigs and broilers, on farm, loading, transport and at slaughter;
• Review the state-of-the-art technologies to measure each animal welfare indicator;
• Implement and install the novel technologies of various technology readiness level (TRL) in the first phase pilots, leading to 24 installations at the moment;
• Increase the TRL levels of the novel technologies from TRL 2-8 (mean 4) to TRL 2-9 (mean 5-6);
• Set the requirements for the data platform and feedback tool, whilst designing a first mock-up version;
• Develop standardized data collection protocols to collect the necessary inputs for animal welfare, environmental and socio-economic evaluation for the supplying companies in each pilot;
• Setting up an expert panel with 74 members to date, in order to create a participative approach with all stakeholders involved.
The project’s intended impact is to enhance the capacity to evaluate and monitor the state of animal welfare EU-wide, and to further improve animal welfare by providing best practices and innovative tools. In addition, environmental and socio-economic impact of the proposed practices will be integrated with the animal welfare assessment.
This has a large potential impact, as pigs and broilers are the biggest sources of meat worldwide and in Europe, and account for 51% and 30% of EU meat production, corresponding to roughly 257 million pigs and 7.8 billion broilers slaughtered annually. The pilots include some of the main producing countries covering different geographic areas of the EU and including different types of production. The expected impacts on livestock production and animal welfare are extremely large as aWISH foresees a concept and methodology that is inclusive, sector driven and multi-actor based, efficient and cost-effective, and scalable to other slaughterhouse sites, production countries and meat producing species.
This has a large potential impact, as pigs and broilers are the biggest sources of meat worldwide and in Europe, and account for 51% and 30% of EU meat production, corresponding to roughly 257 million pigs and 7.8 billion broilers slaughtered annually. The pilots include some of the main producing countries covering different geographic areas of the EU and including different types of production. The expected impacts on livestock production and animal welfare are extremely large as aWISH foresees a concept and methodology that is inclusive, sector driven and multi-actor based, efficient and cost-effective, and scalable to other slaughterhouse sites, production countries and meat producing species.