Stakeholder meeting on the welfare of beef cattle and turkeys: farming practices and data
Background
Animal welfare is an integral part of the European Union’s Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy, which aims at making agricultural practices in Europe more sustainable. As part of the strategy, and in response to the growing public attention around animal welfare, the EU is undertaking a review of its animal welfare legislation, for which EFSA was asked by the EC to provide new scientific advice that reflects the most up-to-date scientific research and data on the welfare of broilers, calves, pigs, laying hens, dairy cows, ducks, geese and quails on farm as well as the welfare during transport of pigs, bovines, equids, small ruminants and animals transported in containers.
The European Commission has sent two mandates to EFSA to deliver a scientific opinion, one on the welfare of beef cattle on farm and one on the welfare of turkeys on farm. Therefore, EFSA hosted a stakeholder meeting that set the scene for an open dialogue between EFSA and its stakeholders from the early stages of the risk assessment process.
Scope and objectives
The stakeholder meeting took place in Brussels on two consecutive days to offer stakeholders the opportunity to learn about EFSA’s work on animal welfare and to engage in a technical discussion on the available data and data sources that will inform EFSA's scientific advice on the welfare of beef cattle and turkeys on farm.
The meeting was the first step in a new engagement approach for the animal welfare mandates received by EFSA after September 2023. Such an approach is based on the early and regular involvement of stakeholders in the risk assessment process until the adoption of a scientific opinion by the EFSA AHAW Panel.
Next engagement steps
EFSA plans to engage regularly with stakeholders throughout the two mandates until the publication of its scientific opinions.
As a next step after this stakeholder meeting, EFSA is going to launch a call for evidence to collect data/information to support the risk assessment. Stakeholders are invited to prepare their contribution based on the questions outlined in the closing presentations of the two meeting sessions (welfare of beef cattle on farm; welfare of turkeys on farm). The calls will be publicly announced and proactively notified by EFSA to all meeting participants.
Stakeholders who have provided relevant data/information may be invited to ad-hoc technical hearings of the EFSA working groups on beef cattle and turkeys on farm at any stage of the risk assessment.
In addition, before finalising its scientific advice, EFSA may run a targeted consultation on specific topics/sections of the draft opinions on which the Authority may still need the contribution of stakeholders to formulate its scientific advice. If such a need is confirmed by the EFSA AHAW Panel, the targeted consultation will be announced on the dedicated EFSA portal in the “Upcoming consultations” section. A public consultation of the full scientific opinions will not be carried out.
Once published, the scientific opinions on the welfare of beef cattle and turkeys on farm will be presented in public webinars where EFSA will explain its conclusions/recommendations and clarify how the inputs of stakeholders throughout risk assessment contributed to shaping EFSA’s advice. Interested parties are invited to check the calendar of EFSA’s events regularly for information regarding EFSA’s upcoming public engagement initiatives.