Agriculture Counselor Wouter Verhey at the 2nd Animal Welfare Science Conference

Animal welfare still takes a back seat in China. But the topic gets more and more attention. Although China does not have a specific set of animal welfare regulations, there is regulation on this topic, often as part of other regulations for the animal husbandry sector. Mr. Shi Jianzhong, head of the National Animal Husbandry Station -which is part the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs- distinguished three phases in Chinese animal welfare development. The first phase is before 2000. Until then, animal welfare was hardly part of the policy. The second phase is between 2001 – 2010, when there was a growing understanding at government and scientists that something has to be done. From 2010 until present, China’s animal welfare has been slowly integrated into the government policy and industry practices. Although animal welfare policy is developing, there is still a long way to go. There is hardly any pressure coming from consumer movements. There are NGO’s concerned with this topic but there impact is small. The economic rationale is predominant in animal husbandry production systems and achieving higher levels of self-sufficiency is a priority which does not leave much scope for changes.

As mentioned earlier animal welfare regulations are often part of broader animal husbandry regulations. Examples are regulations towards a better biosecurity –high on the agenda now as a consequence of the outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF) in China and the COVID 19 pandemic-. As a consequence of ASF new regulation is being introduce which also contains improvements of animal welfare and as a consequence of COVID the number of animal species which could be commercially produced at farm level is reduced, leaving for instance dogs out of the list of allowed animals.