The chair of the National Farm Animal Care Council’s Pig Code Development Committee says consumers are becoming more aware of how their food is produced and want assurances it’s done in a safe and humane manner.
Last week the National Farm Animal Care Council’s Pig Code Development Committee finalized its updated Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs in Canada and that document has now been submitted for editing.
Committee chair Florian Possberg says public interest in the process has been over the top.
It elicited interest from all across Canada and quite a number of countries from around the world so it’s fair to say that the pig code has really garnered far and away more interest than any other code in Canada and it has had very broad input from both public and producers to come up with a final code.
Consumers are getting more aware of how their food is produced.
Often they don’t necessarily need to know or want to know the details of how their food is purchased but they do want to know that it’s done in a safe humane way that they can feel good about buying their food and participating in the industry.
That’s really what the code is meant to do.
Instead of trying to debate some of these issues in the media or have retailers go off and have their own little programs we really believe it’s better to have a comprehensive program that looks at all aspects of animal welfare and care and deal with it not only from different viewpoints but with sound scientific input as well.
Possberg says once the updated code has been edited and the final version approved by the committee it will need to be translated at which point it will be ready for public release.
He expects that to happen by late winter or early spring.
