Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
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Defra publishes response to FAWC report on animal breeding
The Government has today published its response to the Farm Animal Welfare Council's report on the welfare implications of animal breeding and breeding technologies.
Defra has accepted or partially accepted several of FAWC's eight recommendations, including that surveillance systems should be established to monitor on-farm welfare problems associated with breeding, and to monitor farms where new breed types or new breeding technologies are first introduced into commercial practice.
In the response Defra has also recognised the improvements made since the FAWC report was published. For example, a new EU-wide code of practice for animal breeding technologies is now in place. The breeding industry now routinely incorporates animal health and welfare considerations into breeding programmes.
Minister for Food, Farming and Animal Health, Jeff Rooker, said:
""FAWC put forward eight recommendations to us. We have accepted or partially accepted four of these as we agree that they form a sensible approach for addressing the issue of breeding and breeding technologies in the future.
"Of those that we have rejected, we have done so as we believe that they are already addressed by current legislation, a new EU-wide breeding code, and the breeding industry's increasing recognition of the importance of animal welfare.
"We look forward to working with the breeding industry in the future on further improvements."
The Government's response to the FAWC report can be found at http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/welfare/farmed/breeding_response.pdf
The FAWC Report on the Welfare Implications of Animal Breeding and Breeding Technologies in Commercial Agriculture can be found at
http://www.fawc.org.uk/pdf/breedingreport.pdf
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