Scottish Animal Welfare Commission: Good Food Nation animal welfare indicators

4. Proposed Approach

In suggesting indicators for use in the GFN plan in the future we have considered indicators at different levels, as requested in the ToR, based on where we believe there are existing data (although this may not necessarily be readily accessible or may require data-sharing agreements with data owners), where data could be collected but may require some additional investment in time and resources to collect, and indicators where further research is likely to be needed before these indicators could be used.

The characteristics of indicators at these different levels are:

Level 1: Those where the data are available and held by someone, and would need to be integrated and interrogated, but we believe the data are readily available (e.g. numbers of animal in specific systems; some abattoir data, APHA/Red Tractor/other farm assurance data). These would be relatively short term or immediate and could provide baseline or background data as well as data for future collation of the impact of the GFN on animal welfare.

Level 2: Indicators where data may be available or could be collected relatively easily, may need investment and may not be historical data (e.g. additional abattoir data, farm assurance data, accreditation and inspection reports; some specific indicators of lameness, turnout etc which may be held by industry and/or rural payments data). These indicators may require further work to make information available but should be achievable within the medium term.

Level 3: Indicators that could provide more detailed understanding of animal welfare (especially positive welfare) but where data are not currently collected and might need some development (e.g. Qualitative Behaviour Assessment (QBA), stockperson skills and training, automated assessments; integration of other data sources). These have the advantage of providing a better understanding of animal welfare at the level of the animal’s experience on farm, but are likely to require further research, training or implementation to be achieved. As such these are likely to be goals for more longer-term assessments.