In this Position Paper, we explain how we’d like the EU to address the issue of day-old poultry culling, which namely affects ducklings and male chicks in the farming sector.

In this Position Paper, we explain how we’d like the food and farming sectors to have evolved by 2050 in the EU, with a focus on animal welfare, plant-based products and the end of industrial agriculture.

New Genomic Techniques (NGTs) come at the moment in which the international community attempts for a transition towards a more plant-based diet, and consumer demand for higher animal welfare standards is at an all-time high. While the promises of increased animal welfare, improved productivity and decreased environmental pressure are thought-provoking, there are concerns about the use of NGTs as they will not bring about any change to methods of production in general. This paper outlines Eurogroup for Animals' position.

The Farm to Fork strategy aims to reduce the environmental and climate footprint of the EU food system and facilitate the shift to healthy and sustainable diets. As part of this commitment, it seeks to further empower consumers through labelling information. A proposal for a sustainable food labelling framework is scheduled for 2024, and the same time, the European Commission is considering options for animal welfare labelling. This report details what we at Eurogroup for Animals believe should be included for a meaningful and effective animal welfare label, along with how such a label can fit together with the sustainable food labelling framework, and our key considerations regarding the methodology that would underpin the above.

The Framework Sustainable Food System law can, potentially, be the game changer that makes the EU’s agricultural and food sectors positive contributors to fighting climate change and ensuring food security.

The framework law must, therefore, be given the capacity to transform the entire food system to make healthy, sustainable food the central objective of all agri-food policy and legislation.

Eurogroup for Animals has identified five policy priorities that need to be addressed by the framework for the sustainable transformation of the EU’s food system.

Eurogroup for Animals welcomes the public consultation on the review of the EU school fruit, vegetables and milk scheme that will “contribute to promoting sustainable food consumption, in line with the Farm to Fork Strategy.”

While the school scheme was designed to increase the consumption of dairy products, reconnect children with agriculture and teach them about healthy eating habits, we believe that it is important to review the school milk scheme in light of the transition to healthy, sustainable diets and the negative environmental impact of intensive animal farming. The design and implementation of the school milk scheme should be based on reaching the targets of the European Green Deal, the Farm to Fork strategy, Europe's Beating Cancer Plan and the EU Organic Action Plan.

In 2019 over 1,600,000,000 farm animals (ovines, bovines, poultry, and pigs) were transported alive across the European Union and to non-European countries. Live transport is a major concern as animals are exposed to stress at loading and unloading, and can suffer hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and lack of space and rest during transit. Transporting live animals also poses serious risks for animals and, potentially, public health due to the possible spread of diseases.

Eurogroup for Animals calls for systemic changes to make sure that animals will not be unnecessarily transported within the EU and they will never leave the Union alive.

Avian Influenza (HPAI) is a disease caused by influenza type A viruses that mainly infect wild birds, domestic birds and poultry. Certain highly-pathogenic viruses can cause very high mortality rates, mainly in chickens and turkeys.

This Position Paper presents some measures to prevent and contain outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in domestic poultry.

As an alternative to industrial animal agriculture, cellular agriculture can offer thousands of kilos of meat grown in a controlled environment using cellular biology and tissue engineering. The production process is based on “cell culture technology” that has been used in Europe for decades, for example for growing yeasts for bread baking. Cultivated meat can provide one more important piece in a puzzle of multiple approaches to the necessary transition to a sustainable food system

In the European Union (EU), veal is defined as meat from calves up to 12 months of age. Calves farmed for white and rosé veal production, are likely to experience various health and welfare issues, due to early separation, transport from the farm of origin to a fattening one, housing and malnutrition.

With almost 10 billion farmed animals slaughtered every year in the European Union, and the increased number of culling operations due to disease control, welfare at the time of slaughter and killing is a major concern. In May 2020 the European Commission announced the revision of the Slaughter Regulation to address major shortcomings. Eurogroup for Animals advocates to: align the legislative text with the latest scientific knowledge by, also, broadening its scope particularly to fish; address the major shortcomings and potential threats of the present rules; and enhance animal welfare by regulating mobile slaughter and favour on-farm killing of end-of-production animals.

According to the Slaughter Regulation on the protection of animals at the time of killing, in the European Union (EU) animals shall be killed only after having been stunned, with a derogation to this rule for “animals subject to particular methods of slaughter prescribed by religious rites”. Due to the serious animal welfare concerns associated with slaughter without stunning, Eurogroup for Animals calls for repealing the derogation to mandatory stunning as set forth by Article 4.4 of the Council Regulation 1099/2009 (Slaughter Regulation). Resources should be urgently allocated to validating humane reversible stunning methods for all relevant species.

In 1962, the six founding Member States of the European Economic Community vowed to restore Europe’s capacity to feed itself through the creation of the Common Agricultural Policy (“CAP”). Very quickly, the CAP was successful in achieving food security, so much so that as early as the 1970s farmers started over producing food.

Although the CAP has undergone several reforms aiming to adapt the agricultural support systems to past and current challenges, these reforms have failed to deliver results in transitioning to a more sustainable agriculture and away from intensive production methods. Quite the opposite, the CAP has in fact incentivised the intensification of agriculture across Europe. The predominant business model has become
that of the so-called ‘factory farms,’ where extreme confinement of animals is the norm, entailing excessive use of antibiotics, environmental pollution and degraded labour conditions for workers along the production
chain.

Such an orientation in policy stands in sharp contrast with the overwhelming commitment of EU citizens towards farm animal welfare and the societal demand for a CAP more effective in delivering on farm animal welfare objectives.

The position of Eurogroup for Animals is that - in the spirit of Recital 6 of the Slaughter Regulation (1099/2009/EC) - the stunning of pigs with high concentrations of CO2 should be phased out as quickly as possible. Therefore, research and development resources should be urgently devoted to finding a painless and non-aversive alternative to stunning with high concentrations of CO2.

The European Commission, the EU Member States and the pig industry must invest the necessary funding, energy and commitment to developing one or more alternative stunning methods that either induce instantaneous unconsciousness or that, if the process is gradual, are non-aversive.