The EU-funded WelFarmers project provides an opportunity for Irish pig farmers to feed into the development of animal welfare regulations, the Cavan-leg of Teagasc’s pig farming conference heard last week.

The project focuses on identifying challenges and developing ready-to-implement best practices across three areas of welfare regulations of relevance to Irish pig farmers – increased space allowances, raising pigs with intact tails and loose sow housing in farrowing houses.

Among the challenges identified by the project for free farrowing and lactation are higher production costs, a lack of clarity around housing specifications and concerns over the potential for the transition to raise mortality rates.

The project found similar health and welfare concerns on the rearing of pigs with intact tails.

TAMS

Future efforts to increase space requirements could see farmers run into planning permission roadblocks, stretch farm labour and see Targeted Agriculture Modernisation Scheme (TAMS) funds remain outside pig farmers’ reach, some participants have warned.

The European Commission was due to bring forward proposals to update EU animal welfare rules and these proposals were to have been based off a series of European Food Safety Authority reports on animal welfare published in 2022 and 2023.

However, no proposals materialised as concerns grew on the impact the stringent standards referenced in these reports could have at farm- and consumer-level.

The IFA’s pig executive Sarah Hanley told the conference that the Commission’s funding of the WelFarmers project signals that Brussels may now be open to a more farmer-orientated approach to updating these welfare rules.

“It probably gives an indication that it is likely that the Commission will wait until we complete this three-year project before the standards are revised.

“We know that they are quite keen to engage and learn from this as much as we are. The bottom-up approach involving farmers, that is something that has never happened before,” she said.