Executive Summary
1. The Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) supported the recommendations made by the Banner Committee in its 1994 Report. It is concerned that little seems to have been done to address them. FAWC liases with the Animal Procedures Committee to consider developments in biotechnology and their potential welfare consequences as well as considering gaps in the regulatory/control processes. FAWC’s 1998 Report on ‘The Implications of Cloning for the Welfare of Farmed Livestock’, recommended that "the general principles as prescribed by the Banner Committee should be accepted as a framework within which present and future uses of animals should be assessed". Recommendations were also made on the welfare concerns surrounding cloning technology. A detailed Government Response is still awaited. FAWC has already requested that the AEBC revisit these reports and also proposes this to the Select Committee.
Problems arising from conventional livestock breeding programmes.
2. One of the most serious welfare problems in agriculture is the outcome of a lack of balance in genetic selection in past breeding programmes. Techniques currently being developed have the potential to greatly accelerate the trend towards the development of adverse welfare consequences. There is an urgent need for research directed towards assessing the changing incidence and nature of welfare problems, and also to determine the respective genetic and environmental contributions.
Application of gene mapping to selective breeding programmes
3. FAWC acknowledges that the application of gene mapping to selective breeding programmes may rectify some problems i.e. by selecting for specific health traits. However, concerns remain that, with commercial pressures, the primary focus of attention will be for production-related traits.
4. The introduction of "foreign" genetic material raises additional problems for the regulating processes and the difficulties of predicting and evaluating welfare impact on the animals involved.
5. In December 1999 work by medical researchers in Houston was reported in which gene therapy technology was used to make pigs grow 40% larger and faster. The potential commercial benefits of developments such as these are obvious. All such developments should be subjected to complete evaluation with regard to safety, welfare implications and ethical considerations.
6. Techniques that arise out of research performed in other countries may be introduced into UK agriculture without control. These may range from novel breeding techniques to novel methods of immobilisation and/or anaesthesia of animals. There may be other techniques that have not yet been encountered or even imagined.