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Farm-Scape, Episode 2264

The Alberta Farm Animal Care Association is encouraging legislators to consider codes of practice as amendments to the Health of Animals Act move forward.

Since last December the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has been informally gathering public input on proposed changes to the section of the Health of Animals Act that deals with transportation.

Over 100 individuals or organizations representing a wide range of interests including researchers, transporters, animal welfare organizations and the general public have made submissions.

Alberta Farm Animal Care Association chairman David Hyink says stakeholders would like to see any amendments reflect the good practices that are happening in industry already.

"I think industry has really started to look at their codes of practice right now.

I know that, at a national level, there's a new National Farm Animal Care Council which has been given the job of restarting the development of the code of practice and the renewing of the code of practice program.

One of the big things industry is asking for is that, as these codes of practice change and as they're updated with the newest science and the newest information that we have, if the regulations could refer to the codes of practice in industry then they'd be much more current and they'd reflect the science and the technological changes that are happening in industry so that's one of the things that industry is looking for to improve things is to have it tied to, possibly, the codes of practice of industry."

Hyink notes there's a lot of effort being directed right now, including benchmark research, aimed at getting a better understanding of what actually is happening on the road.

He notes a lot of what we have now is anecdotal and to get some real facts and information would provide a much better picture of what's happening on the road, where the problem areas might be and what the needs are.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.