After a dozen years promoting livestock well-being, Susan Church, the manager of Alberta Farm Animal Care, has received a national award from the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association for her work.
Animal welfare was not a major agricultural issue when the organization was formed 12 years ago with Church at the helm. It was support by a handful of producer organizations and the provincial government.
“People didn’t even talk about animal welfare,” Church said.
Bringing producer groups on side was the first challenge.
“Not one of them even had animal welfare or animal care as a priority or as part of their mandate; now all of them do,” she said.
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“They include what they are doing in regards to animal care in their annual reports.”
Work remains to be done.
“I believe we have to be more diligent with those few producers who for whatever reason do a very poor job in looking after their livestock,” Church said.
Veterinarians and producers work directly with producers who are having difficulties in an attempt to stop problems from turning into livestock seizures and bad publicity.
There have been milestones.
The organization was involved in writing humane handling guidelines for pork, dairy, beef and sheep with more species to come on board.
