Toespraak van staatssecretaris van Dam voor de bijeenkomst van de Eurogroup for Animals

Toespraak | 15-03-2016

Ladies and gentlemen,

For a long, long time, farming and animal husbandry were simple affairs. Our ancestors produced food on a small scale and enjoyed a simple diet. In recent decades, however, this has changed. Technological innovation and changing consumer demands have given birth to a large-scale agrofood industry.

This has brought us many good things, like prosperity, health and choice. But, while we can be grateful for these benefits, we need to face the fact that the current food system is not future proof. In 3 decades we will have to feed 9 or 10 billion people and current food production practices are unsustainable. They are exhausting our natural resources and damaging our ecosystems.

To make a real and lasting change, we need to start at the source: agriculture. We need to shift from a supply-oriented system to a demand-led one. Specifically, the demands of consumers and society as a whole. And their demands - especially in our part of the world - are pretty clear. More safety, more transparency and better treatment of animals.

To achieve this we need a transition to a more innovative and sustainable production system. One that is based on the latest scientific insights. One that produces higher-quality food. One that conserves nature. And of course, one that treats animals well. Cows, pigs and chickens are not production units, they are sentient beings. They have a right to more care and compassion.

If I look at livestock production, I feel there is considerable room for improvement. Different feed, slower growth, more space. And sustainability and welfare as an integral part of production. The pig sector and calves sector specifically are already restructuring and improving with this in mind.

All of this is the joint responsibility of farmers, food producers and animal welfare organisations. And for their part, policy makers can encourage change by stimulating innovation, setting standards and ensuring that regulations are enforced. Today's meeting brings together key stakeholders in this important debate and I am grateful the Eurogroup and EP-Intergroup have made the effort to organise it.

Now, a 100 years ago, pretty much all our food was produced locally by individuals you probably knew by name. Today, most food is produced across complex chains that span various industries and countries. The current system tends to value efficiency more than animal welfare.

In the Netherlands, I am pleased with what the agro-food industry has done to improve on this. Some 65% of pigs are not castrated anymore and we are aiming to fully phase out this practice. Pregnant sows are now housed in groups 4 days after insemination and we have introduced innovative animal husbandry approaches for chickens and cows.

I am also pleased with the success of the Better Life certification of the Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals. This certification is printed on eggs and meat products and shows chow well animals have been treated, allowing consumers to make a conscious decision as to what they are buying. Seeing how this meets a need that government regulations had failed to address, supermarkets are now committing to phasing out within a few years all meat that is uncertified.

So things are gradually improving in the Netherlands. Now, in order to improve animal welfare across the whole of Europe, to create a level playing field and facilitate the marketing of animal products, we need to have a new animal welfare strategy on a EU-level.

The previous one has achieved some good results. The ban on traditional battery cages has been enforced and audited, and there is compulsory group housing of pregnant sows. And a number of EU member states has managed to apply the directive banning traditional cages on time. Others, however, have not, which shows we need to harmonise the implementation and enforcement of policies.

Looking at the previous strategy, I also notice that several goals and actions are still outstanding. Such as a study on the welfare of fish during transport and guidelines on the protection of animals at the time of killing. I encourage the European Commission to complete all outstanding actions as soon as possible and work on a new strategy.

Because we need one to guide us in the coming years. Which is why, like many of you, I have been wondering what a new strategy should look like. Allow me to share 5 suggestions with you, which are based on the Vught declaration that has been signed by Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands in 2014 and which was joined by Sweden last year.

First, legislation and regulation should conform to the latest scientific insights, technological innovations and socioeconomic trends. For example, it has become easier to measure animal welfare using clear animal-based indicators, such as the percentage of lame animals. And the European Food Safety Authority has said that the time limit for the transport of horses for slaughter should be decreased. In addition, the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare indicated in 2002 that many animal species and categories should have a considerable resting period after traveling no more than 8 hours.

I think that the EU Transport regulation should be improved and updated based on such insights, my second suggestion. In the case of transports, it may be time to ask ourselves whether we should continue to allow transports lasting more than 8 hours to exist. I would like to request the European Commission to make a socio-economic impact analysis on capping transport time for slaughter animals to 8 hours.

A third suggestion is to minimise mutilating animals, for example by trimming the beaks of chickens and castrating pigs and docking their tails. This topic resonates widely with consumers and other stakeholders because it is cruel to animals. Which is why the Netherlands aims to phase out surgical castrations of piglets by 2018 and why the Commission's support for the Brussels declaration on alternatives to surgical castration continues to be needed. In addition, I would like to reiterate the request to the Commission to explore possibilities for a new, comprehensive legislative framework for animal welfare.

Fourth, I would welcome EU legislation for animal species and categories currently not covered by specific legislation. This way there can be clarity around, say, housing requirements and space allowances for turkeys and rabbits. The more species we can protect, the fairer and more sustainable our food production will become.

Fifth, there is a need for structural EU-wide co-operation, specifically an EU platform for animal welfare. This could become a centre for networking, sharing research and exchanging best practices, also around the application of the existing regulations. The idea for such a platform has received broad support, including from myself, and I feel the Commission should quickly come up with a proposal.

My sixth and final suggestion relates not to the EU strategy itself, but to something that influences its impact. Europe relies in part on imports from outside of the EU, from places where animal welfare standards are lower than our own. We need to make sure that trade agreements do not hamper our efforts to improve the welfare of animals by further opening our markets to products from animals that have been kept below our EU standards.

Ladies and gentlemen,

All of us here are passionate about improving the welfare of animals. Our efforts have yielded results, but we all know a lot more remains to be done. I would like us to create a world in which animals receive compassionate treatment, in which the EU continues to uphold the highest animal welfare standards and in which our food is healthy, delicious, safe and honest.

So I would like us to commit to a food production system that by 2030, at the latest, offers animals a substantially better life, with more space in which to live in a natural way, the ability to go outside and more respect for their physical integrity. The previous EU strategy has contributed towards this goal and I would like a next strategy to take us further. I look forward to this.

Thank you.