By Bruce Cochrane.
The President of the Ag and Food Exchange is encouraging farmers to be aware of the difference between animal rights and animal welfare and to play an active role in sharing with the public what they do to ensure the animals in their care are well cared for.
To many farmers animal rights and animal welfare are the same, but the goal of animals rights activists is to end the human use of animals, whether for consumption, for clothing or for entertainment.
Geraldine Auston, the President of the Ag & Food Exchange says many people don't understand what happens on the farm and farmers are often so busy taking care of things on the farm that they don't always focus on sharing with the public what they do and their commitment to animal welfare.
Geraldine Auston-Ag & Food Exchange:
There's all sorts of different things within the organizations, national, provincial organizations for commodities for animals, there's different things, the Code Practice that exists.
It outlines different things that farmers must be doing on their farms to care for animals.
There are voluntary assessments that they have to ensure that they're doing a check off, that animals are cared for appropriately.
There's all sorts of extra training the farmers can take.
A good example of that is the transportation side where there is a certification program for transportation that certainly exceeds what is in the current regulations.
They have all of these tools that they can access.
National producer groups and provincial producer groups, I'm aware, do hold educational sessions throughout the year for their farmers to improve practices, bring researchers in.
We have a huge commitment of researchers in our country on improving animal welfare at farm, in transport and at processing.
Auston says unveiling some of the mystery of what happens on the farm will help a lot in bringing consumers back to the farm and building their understanding of what farmers do and that farmers are committed to good animal welfare.
Source: Farmscape