Just prior to the start of the Banff Pork Seminar, on January 9, while it was quickly becoming frigidly cold outside, discussions were taking place around animal welfare in modern pork production systems. More than 40 pork producers, industry representatives and researchers came together for a research forum to hear the results generated from the Natural Sciences Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Industrial Research Chair (IRC) in Swine Welfare research program.
Seddon kicked off the meeting with an overview of the factors at play driving the conversation forward on animal welfare, including emerging regulatory changes. The solution was the creation of a 5-year research Chair in swine welfare, providing resources to address current and future challenges. The objective was to conduct research to support sustainable pork production systems, with a focus on improving welfare in fully slatted reared pigs, including tools to measure and monitor welfare.
This objective was split into four goals: 1) the impact of early life influences on sociability and resilience to stress of growing pigs; 2) the ability for play to induce positive emotions and immune response; 3) the identification of biological markers to indicate welfare; 4) and the examination of carcasses at processing to measure welfare. During the forum in Banff, three PhD students and one postdoctoral fellow presented their research results tied to the respective program goals.
Swine welfare a hot topic in cold Banff (full article)
