Document type : article published in Presse Agence
Author: Floriane Dumont
Preview: For the 2024 French Agriculture Salon, the Élevage et Viande (livestock and meat) sector is offering the public the chance to discover all the key topics that lie at the heart of the issues facing today's industry professionals.
The livestock and meat sector, a central player in ecological and food transition:
"Transition" involves changing from one state of affairs to another. This perfectly describes the past 60 years of the Livestock and Meat sector, in tune with the ethos of the 60th French Salon International de l'Agriculture, which runs from February 24 to March 3. [...]
A professional's view : improving practice using the interprofessional tool to check on animal welfare in the abattoir
Mathieu LOAS, Operations Manager of a slaughterhouse in Orne (61): "We've been carrying out the interprofessional diagnosis of animal welfare in slaughterhouses for several years now, ever since we were a pilot site. This involves an assessment of our practices from 3 angles: compliance with regulations, adoption of industry best practices, and formal documentation. The challenge for us is to make progress every year, and it's also a guarantee of professionalism for our network of breeders and all our customers. From a very operational point of view, for example, the first diagnosis highlighted the benefits of providing comfort mats or bedding for animals housed in certain areas of the bouverie. Now that we've identified the key areas, we've been able to install comfort mats more quickly, to enhance the animals' well-being. [...] In terms of documentation, the diagnosis was also beneficial. We realized that it was important to formalize all our practices in writing, especially those concerning the management of unusual or infrequent situations. A major inventory was therefore carried out to formalize them in detail. Today, all our operators have easy access to them, which, in the event of unusual situations, helps to reassure them, to ensure animal welfare and also to be much more efficient. In my opinion, this audit represents nothing but advantages for the company, for the breeders, for our customers and ultimately for consumers.
