Why is animal welfare important to both – humans and animals?

Since the global trend of raising society’s awareness of animal welfare is growing, so is the demand for the products that are made with respect for humane treatment of animals. Food industry should to adopt to this, so that demand is not met only by ways of imports from markets that are one step ahead which can reflect poorly on the local economies. Respect for the welfare and humane treatment greatly affect the quality of life of animals raised for human consumption. 

These are just some of the messages from the National conference „Development of public awareness related to animal welfare“ that was jointly organized by the Veterinary Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, EU project „Reinforcement of Animal health and welfare“ and Chamber of Commerce of Serbia – Association for  Livestock Breeding and Processing of Livestock Products. 

„Animal welfare is an integral part of the European Union’s most recent agricultural strategy known as the Farm to Fork, which aims to make agriculture practice in Europe more sustainable, through an integrated food policy that covers the entire supply chain”, said Head of Operation 3 in the Delegation of European Union, Sakellares Hourdas. He added that  last year Serbia broke the record when it comes to the overall value of exports of food to the EU. “The value of Serbia’s export of food to the EU was almost 700 million euro higher than the imports. The EU was the main export destination for Serbian agriculture products (55%), while its overall value exceeded 2.3 billion euro”, said Hourdas.

National and international experts spoke about animal welfare and its evolution, the role of Word Association for Animal Health in promoting welfare, as well as welfare problems in intensive poultry systems and pig farming systems. There was also talk about the welfare of animals in slaughterhouses, the impact of bisecurity of animal transport, as well as the possibilities of establishing welfare in large and small primary production. 

„As a country that has received full candidate status membership of the EU, Serbia has committed to harmonize its legislation with that of the EU. Competent authorities implementing legislative change are likely to be faced with a food industry that sometimes does not see the benefits of improving animal welfare and needs more time to adapt. This leaves it lagging behind the standards of the European Union, because it is impossible to export products from Serbia to EU countries, while, on the other hand, the EU food industry has free access to the Serbian market“, said the expert for animal welfare within the project, Antonio Di Nardo. 

The national conference was attended by representatives of the Veterinary Directorate of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, members of the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), as well as veterinarians, representatives of  livestock breeders and slaughterhouses, numerous domestic and international experts.