Document type : news item from the INRAE website
Author: Pascale Mollier
Preview: Eight researchers, including ethologists, physiologists, neurobiologists and geneticists have received the INRAE 2021 Research Impact Award. They represent a network of more than 100 people at INRAE working on animal welfare and how it is incorporated into livestock systems.
Until the second half of the 20th century, we used to hear: "We must adapt animals to farming, have docile breeds for human safety, avoid stress at slaughter to preserve the quality of the meat. Now, it is more a question of adapting the farms to the animals, building a human-animal relationship that respects both parties, avoiding animal suffering and offering our animals positive experiences throughout their lives. A real social revolution has taken place in a few decades, since the 1980s. Thanks to the development of ethology and the way it complements other disciplines (physiology, neurobiology, genetics, sociology), research has supported this change.
The INRAE group that has been recognised in the 2021 Awards is representative of this cross-disciplinary approach, which has made it possible both to develop research that is internationally recognised and to introduce concrete changes in livestock farming practices.
See also a further article on the same topic published in Le Courrier des Entreprises on 2 December 2021 : La recherche INRAE sur le bien-être animal récompensée
