Source: National Farm Animal Care Council
Progress continues in the development of the Livestock and Poultry Transportation Code of Practice. Species-Specific Working Groups (WG) are continuing their work under the leadership of Code Managers Jeffrey Spooner, Kate Cooper, and Lucie Verdon. The Pig WG met for its first in-person meeting in November, and both the Cattle and Mink/Fox/Rabbit WGs held their first in-person meetings in Toronto in January. A second 2-day meeting for the Poultry WG is scheduled for February, as is the first meeting of the Sheep/Goats WG.
In November, the transportation Code team organized two webinars (one in English and one in French) for Species-Specific WG members. The webinars were hosted by CFIA to assist WGs with understanding the amended Health of Animals Regulations that govern animal transport. All (90+) Species-Specific WG participants were invited to join the webinars. Many thanks to CFIA for answering the call to host the webinars which resulted in positive feedback from participants.
In November, the Transportation Code director delivered a presentation at the National Farmed Animal Health and Welfare Council 2019 Forum in Gatineau, QC. She spoke about the many challenges associated with tackling the first off-farm Code that is following the NFACC Code Development Process. Some of those challenges were discussed by the Transportation Code team at the first meeting of the Editing & Review Committee in November. The meeting triggered a re-think about the approach being taken and led to recommendations moving forward.
These recommendations were presented to the NFACC board and other stakeholders at the NFACC meeting in December and there was agreement to fine-tune the approach. As a result, there will be a re-focus of energy from drafting species-specific Code content to drafting Code content that is common to all animals covered by the Code.
Consequently, efforts are underway to populate the Code Development Committee, which through the use of sub-committees, will have responsibility for drafting common content. The expertise of species-specific WGs will continue to be used to tease out animal-specific content. Once the WGs have gone as far as they deem appropriate, their work will be paused until such time that the common content has been populated. At that point, the species-specific WGs will reconvene to draft additional species-specific content as needed.
Further information on the transportation Code’s progress can be found here.
