The RSPCA has just been awarded a major grant by the Open Philanthropy Project, a US foundation, to support long-term work in China to advance farm animal welfare.
China is home to half of the world’s pigs and a third of its poultry, so improvements in livestock farming have a potential impact on enormous numbers of individual animals, now and in the future, the RSPCA says.
The grant is worth $450,000 (£359,000) over two years and the project will use the RSPCA farm animal welfare standards and higher welfare labelling scheme, RSPCA Assured, as a model for a similar assurance and food labelling programme in China.
This award will allow the RSPCA to work closely with the official International Co-operation Committee of Animal Welfare, a key institution involved in bringing together Chinese stakeholders in the livestock farming and food retail sectors.
'Major step forward'
Paul Littlefair, RSPCA Head of International, said the grant is a 'major step forward' in efforts to improve farm animal welfare in China.
He said: “There is a real and growing appetite both at government level and among the public for ethically produced food and reliable food labelling. The scale of farming in China means there is an opportunity to make an extremely broad and lasting impact on animal welfare.”
The RSPCA has already had a significant influence on farm animal welfare in China.
In 2005, the charity responded to the Chinese authorities’ concern for food safety, emphasising the impact of the poor treatment of animals on farms, during transport and at slaughter on the safety and quality of meat and dairy products.
Over the following years the RSPCA brought some of the world’s leading welfare scientists to Beijing to share their experience and research findings.
Since then, the consensus among China’s own scientists and food industry leaders around the importance of welfare has steadily grown. Every March the 3,000 delegates of the National People’s Congress – the world’s largest parliament – come together in Beijing for a week of intense discussion on the major issues confronting the country’s society and economy.
Stronger welfare measures
This month, farm animals were firmly on the agenda as scientist and Congress delegate Zhao Wanping called for China to legislate for stronger welfare measures for farm animals.
He stressed that achieving welfare in Chinese livestock production will be a step-by-step process of gradual improvements driven by increasing consumer awareness and demand for ‘safer, greener and healthier’ food.
Although China’s meat, eggs and milk production has grown rapidly over recent decades, average consumption is still half that of the US and far below Europe.
Interestingly there are signs recently that the authorities are anxious not to see consumption of meat and dairy rise to levels that are unsustainable.
Mr Littlefair added: “It appears that China is moving in a similar direction to Europe, with a focus on encouraging citizens to eat modest amounts of meat but to choose carefully, considering the impact of their eating habits particularly on the environment and animal welfare.
“A higher welfare assurance scheme will enable Chinese consumers for the first time to think about the well-being of farm animals in their purchasing choices.”
