Europe introduces good-practice code for livestock breeding

Published 3 March 2006

The European livestock breeding industry has developed a code of good practice designed to ensure maximum openness and clarity about the practices used in farm animal breeding and reproduction. This code, developed with the support of the European research Framework Program, was presented yesterday at the “Salon d’Agriculture” in Paris, at the launch of the sustainable farm animal breeding and reproduction technology platform. The goal is that breeding companies will adopt the code and will gain certification for complying with it. The objective is to deliver high standards of animal health and welfare in sustainable production systems that can deliver high quality and safe food. The code is available in twenty languages and will be updated regularly.

The Code of Good Practice for Farm Animal Breeding and Reproduction has been developed through Code-EFABAR, a “300,000 project funded from the EU research program. It builds on the experience gained in two previous EU projects, “Farm Animal Breeding and Society” and SEFABAR (Sustainable European Farm Animal Breeding And Reproduction). All of these projects have involved animal breeders, animal breeding scientists, consumer groups, biotechnologists, ethicists, sociologists, animal welfare experts, legal experts, and economists working together on ways to improve the understanding between animal breeding organizations and society at large in order to develop acceptable scenarios for sustainable animal breeding and reproduction.

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