Boehringer Ingelheim celebrates a decade of sharing perspectives on farm animal well-being

Boehringer Ingelheim brings together a multi-disciplinary group of experts to exchange ideas about animal welfare and well-being.

Burlington, Ontario (Sept. 12, 2017) – Better methods for assessing pain in animals, advances in long-distance monitoring technologies, and better communications between producers, veterinarians and the wider food industry will drive improvements in the well-being of farm livestock over the next decade, according to an international group of experts.

Those views were expressed by welfare specialists from all sectors of the food industry at the Expert Forum on Farm Animal Well-Being hosted by Boehringer Ingelheim in Rome on June 8 – 9, 2017.

This annual meeting is an opportunity for a multi-disciplinary group of veterinarians, producers, animal behaviourists, psychologists and representatives of food processing and retailing companies to exchange ideas on the issues that determine progress towards improving the lives of billions of animals that supply our meat, eggs and dairy products.

This year, 130 experts from 17 countries on six continents attended the 10th annual meeting, which looked back on the progress made over the past decade and at the likely developments during the next 10 years.

Dr. Rob Tremblay, Bovine Specialist with Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health in Canada, has attended almost all of the Expert Forums on Farm Animal Well-Being. He is proud that Canada is on the forefront on animal welfare and wellbeing.

“We have formal codes of practice that define expectations regarding the care for agricultural animals, he said. “The national beef and dairy associations have embraced these codes and recognize them as standards of care.”

Dr. Tremblay appreciates the opportunity to attend the Forum to learn about up-and-coming research in the area of farm animal well-being.

“I look forward to hearing about the new knowledge that researchers are going to generate over the next 10 years,” he said following the event. “I also look forward to seeing how livestock farmers and ranchers take that knowledge and implement it.”

During the event, speakers highlighted the advances made in changing perceptions on the importance of providing pain relief in animals undergoing routine surgery or experiencing chronic disease. They discussed a need to develop improved methods for assessing pain in animals which cannot express their feelings other than through indirect measures such as changes to normal behaviour patterns.

Prof. Dan Weary of the University of British Columbia said that finding out what animals feel is of immense practical significance and is one of the most difficult scientific challenges in modern biology.

He presented research about the scientific assessment of pain and suffering in animals and said that veterinary scientists must continue working on ways to ascertain when an animal’s experience of pain starts to constitute physical suffering.

“Suffering is a word usually avoided by fellow researchers, as it is hard to define and means different things to different people,” he said. “But colleagues should not be ‘shy’ in classifying a painful stimulus as causing suffering, particularly in those cases where the animal is experiencing fear and has no control over the factors causing it harm.”

Technologies now exist to automatically monitor an animal’s physical responses and will allow producers to quickly identify potential welfare issues and provide reassurance to consumers who increasingly worry about making ethical choices when buying animal protein-based products.

Several speakers also confirmed that there are sound economic reasons for protecting the wellbeing of food animals. Prof. David Fraser of the University of British Columbia in Canada spoke about the crucial human dimension whereby animal welfare depends strongly on the people involved in their care, not just the environment and other provisions.

Prof. Fraser detailed evidence to show that cattle treated with empathy and compassion by stockmen will be less stressed and more productive that those treated with indifference. He said that cows that have been given an individual name have been shown to produce 258 litres more milk a year than those that have only a number.

But as speakers pointed out, it is impossible to separate animal and human welfare. Producers need advice and support from their veterinarians in order to cope with the pressures of working in the modern agricultural industry. Better communications between primary producers, their professional advisors and the broader food industry will also ensure that that the food chain provides the products that the public wants, while safeguarding the welfare of the animals involved.

About the Boehringer Ingelheim Expert Forum on Farm Animal Well-being
The 10th Boehringer Ingelheim Expert Forum on Farm Animal Well-being: A decade of farm-animal well-being, was held June 8-9, 2017 in Rome, Italy. The Forum brought together 130 experts from 17 countries to share ideas about promoting better standards of welfare for livestock all around the world.

For more information about this Forum and past events, visit: www.farmanimalwellbeing.com

About Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health
In January 2017, Merial became part of the Boehringer Ingelheim group. As the second largest animal health business in the world, Boehringer Ingelheim is committed to making the industry even better at improving animal health. With more than 10,000 employees worldwide, Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health has products available in more than 150 markets and a global presence in 99 countries.  For more information about Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health, click here.

About Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd.

For more than 130 years, Boehringer Ingelheim – a research-based pharmaceutical company – has stood for the development of innovative medicines for people and animals.

Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the pharmaceutical industry’s top 20 companies and to this day remains family-owned. Day by day, some 50,000 employees create value through innovation for the three business areas human pharmaceuticals, animal health and biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing. In 2016, Boehringer Ingelheim achieved net sales of around 15.9 billion euros. With more than three billion euros, R&D expenditure corresponds to 19.6 per cent of net sales.

Social responsibility comes naturally to Boehringer Ingelheim. That is why the company is involved in social projects such as the “Making More Health” initiative. Boehringer Ingelheim also actively promotes workforce diversity and benefits from its employees’ different experiences and skills. Furthermore, the focus is on environmental protection and sustainability in everything the company does.

The Canadian headquarters of Boehringer Ingelheim was established in 1972 in Montreal, Quebec and is now located in Burlington, Ontario. Boehringer Ingelheim employs approximately 600 people across Canada.

For more information please visit www.boehringer-ingelheim.ca

Merry Garbutt