An investigation conceives the animal welfare like “opportunity of business and of value added”
Already lacking less so that it finalise the moratorium conceded for the adaptation of the pork farms to the Law of Animal Welfare. Although the subject follows raising ampollas, especially between the producing sector, because of the possible economic investment that involves the adecuación of the exploitations to the rule, surprise testimonies like the one of the doctor and director of the subprograma of Animal Welfare of the IRTA, Antonio Velarde, manager in addition to the project ‘Scoreboards and animal emotion' or ANEMOMA (by his acronyms in English). “Our idea is that the producer do not perceive the animal welfare like a load imposed by the legislation, but it see it like a value added. Some practices of handle different, that facilitate the contact of the operators with the animals, reassures them and this state of spirit transmits even when it moves them to the slaughterhouses. All this influences in the quality of the meat”.
That the animal welfare do not interpret like an economic load is one of the purposes of this project, but no the only. The main is to study and evaluate the relation between the welfare of the pig, so much in farm as in slaughterhouse, and the quality of his meat, basing in the behaviour and the biomarcadores physiological of the animal, live, and also in the own channel, already sacrificed. In this sense, considers a pioneering investigation, that tries to cover the existent lagoons on how the emotional state, and especially the stress, influence in the welfare of the pork livestock. “Up to now, the measures that employed , in matter of animal welfare, were indirect: they did not evaluate to the copy in himself. They took into account environingingmental factors, density by farm, installations sufficiently conditioned… The reason is simple. These measures are easier to evaluate and arrive to an only conclusion. But in reality, they do not reflect the welfare of the animal, but the conditions in which it lives”, explains Velarde. The problem with which tripped when they measured density and temperature was the variability, according to the manager of the project ANEMOMA. “Like sucede with the human beings, no all the animals react of the same way in front of a determinate temperature. No all have the same sensitivity to the cold or to the heat. What pretend is to deepen in indicators more direct, related with the copy”.
The project could evaluate the emotional state of other species
Although the project ANEMOMA initiated this year, came preceded of other studies of minor envergadura that pretended to validate and identify to the pigs in function of his emotional state. Or at least like this it relates it the director of the subprograma of Animal Welfare of the Irta: “we Did studies of biochemical and cellular parameters and check that they had scoreboards that, according to the degree of stress of the animal could change. We speak of the typical hormones of the stress, like the cortisol, that shoot if the animal is estresado or has to face up to some problem. We proposed us find some methodology that allowed us differentiate between animals with diverse emotional states”. This sucedía three years backwards. Now the current project pretends to evaluate the effect of the sex, of the genotype, of the environingingmental conditions and of handle in the cognitive bias and identify biomarcadores of stress before and after the sacrifice in the blood, saliva, brain, intestine and muscle of the channel. And averiguar if this has relation with the behaviour of the pork livestock when it arrives to the slaughterhouse and also on the quality of the meat.
In addition to the IRTA, the project ANEMOMA, funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, has the participation of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the Regional Service of Investigation and Development Agroalimentario of Asturias (SERIDA) and the University of Oviedo. In spite of the number of members, the collaboration was not complex because “it arose of a common interest”. “In the IRTA, together with the group of ethology and animal welfare of the Faculty of Veterinary of the UAB, looked for methodologies that evaluated the emotional state in alive animals; the rest worked in finding biomarcadores in physiological fluids and in the meat of the animal. We decide aunar disciplines and fix a conjoint aim”.
The investigation has taken like model to the pork livestock although, to tenor of the results, could extrapolate to the bovine and the birds of put, for like this “see how affects to his productivity”. “We have chosen to the pig by several reasons. In the first place, it is one of the species with which more work; second, we have observed how different degrees of handle can affect to his productivity. Thus, we wanted to check until which point the emotional state could influence in the same”.
-Facilitate some more objective indicators and valid that explain better the animal welfare and determine to which parts of the animal production can him give a value added.
-Better quality of the meat, as a result of the implantation of best practices of handle, learning and qualification of the personnel.
-Identify the most critical periods of the animal in the pork production, regarding animal welfare, and loan him a greater attention. Establish, then , the factors that cause greater or lower stress.
-Value all the previous like an opportunity of business, that increases the indexes of production. “To the equal that the consumer asks a meat that fulfil the sanitary ware requirements demanded, also assumes that the animals that produce have some conditions of correct welfare”.
