Letter: a call for standards
Peel Holroyd highlights the need for leadership over animal welfare policy
 SCI vice president Peel Holroyd recently wrote to the Institute of Biology. His letter, below, was published in the March edition of the Institute’s journal.
The interesting article on animal welfare (p339, vol 52/6) rightly highlights the need for international leadership in respect of policy and standards.
This naturally raises the question of global perspective and associated commercial reality pertaining to this important subject of welfare – for example, to the affluent perhaps the true added costs can be absorbed, but how do the ever increasing number of regulations help to solve world-wide ‘poverty’?
The meat and poultry industries operate in a highly competitive marketplace and face an annual growth of some 3-4% just to feed the expanding global population. Many countries do use livestock production as a way of creating new opportunities for the local communities.
Such issues of regulations can evolve into aspects of international trade and the like, and perhaps the time is now appropriate to carefully consider the necessary future policies on ‘welfare’ to avoid any unreal added costs to the ‘production chain’ on the one hand, and the positive contribution these can make to the important areas of ‘bio-security, food safety and consumer interests’ on the other?
Peel Holroyd
SCI Vice President
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