Cemalettin Kanaş
Editor
Dear readers,
We are together with you with our February issue.
As it is known, animal welfare stands out as a relatively new concept and is different from animal health. It is a comprehensive concept that goes beyond just dealing with the health of farm animals from an industrial point of view and covers everything that affects the quality of life of animals.
We announced that Feed Planet, which had previously decided to cover feed additives and received positive reactions from the industry, will also focus on animal health and welfare issues in 2022. In this framework, we got in contact with many national and international organizations and institutes. Among them was the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which works closely with the European Union. In this issue, we had the opportunity to interview Mr. Yves van der Stede, team leader of animal welfare at the European body. Considering our cover topic has been determined as poultry welfare, we had the opportunity to have a very informative conversation by focusing on this species.
Yves van der Stede, who drew attention to the fact that animal welfare should be handled with a scientific approach according to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), stated that developments in animal welfare have a direct positive impact on animal health, and this can be achieved without compromising production rates.
Consumers, who are known to be more conscious and demanding about healthy food compared to a generation or two ago, seem to be sensitive also about animal health and welfare. Van der Stede noted that consumers now attach importance to the fact that the food that enters their homes is produced in accordance with animal welfare criteria, and emphasizes that at EFSA, their role is to identify which are the major problems in each production system and to give advice on what to change to reduce the severity of welfare problems.
I would like to leave you alone with the issue that includes the EFSA interview, of which main titles I mentioned above, and many articles that I believe will be read with interest.
See you in the next issue…
I wish you pleasant reading...