On the 30th and 31st of August, around 20 LIFT members attended the 9th International Conference on the Welfare Assessment of Animals at Farm Level (WAFL) in Florence, Italy (not all are on the group photo). It has been 7 years since the last in-person WAFL conference (Wageningen, 2017), and as a conference focusing on welfare assessment of farm animals, WAFL attracted many LIFT members to attend. A full session was dedicated on positive animal welfare, thereby making it a particularly interesting conference for LIFT. The gathering of LIFT members gave the additional opportunity to catch up with subWG members (such as a catch-up of the complete website team, see photo below).
Of the eight scientific sessions at the WAFL 2024, one session exclusively focused on positive animal welfare (Session 4: New welfare indicators – with a focus on the positive!). Margit Bak Jensen, on behalf of the Core group, presented the LIFT project (title: Lifting farm animal lives – laying the foundations for positive animal welfare). As invited speaker of this session, Margit introduced the background of the LIFT project, why positive animal welfare is needed, and the aim of the project. She also led the audience through the various parts of the definition, which let to plenty of discussion in the coffee breaks. Six out of the 9 further presentations were all from LIFT members, covering topics such as QBA, social networks and human-animal interactions. This offered ample opportunity to discuss (and promote) the concept of positive animal welfare.
Of the scientific sessions, many sessions were in line with the goals of LIFT project, covering WG1-the concept of positive welfare (session 4: new welfare indicators), WG2-methodologies to assess positive animal welfare (session 1: new frontiers in the assessment of animal welfare on-farm), WG3-potential indicators of positive animal welfare to be used on-farm (session 4), and WG4-dissemination and knowledge transfer and exchange (session 5: The future of animal welfare: policy and science). This allowed a smooth discussion of LIFT project for researchers who are not familiar with LIFT project.
This year’s WAFL not only focused on the welfare assessment of animals, but also included different stakeholders in the process of improving animal welfare, for example, society (session 2: Humans in the loop – role of sociology in improving farm animal welfare) and policy makers (session 5), and added a session “Free communication in farm animal welfare” (session 8). LIFT members presented their work in above sessions as well. During the 2-day conference, the most popular session might have been the crowded poster & coffee session (besides the lunch break).
The conference of the European Federation for Animal Science, called EAAP, followed after WAFL, where some LIFT members continued their discussion about animal welfare, facing not only to the animal welfare community, but also to different stakeholders and researchers from across animal science topics. The much larger EAAP conference was another platform for continuing sharing of knowledge about animal welfare, and the role of animal welfare in the whole animal production system (as example the session Scientific perspectives on the sustainable development of our relationship with farm animals, by LIFT WG2 leader Linda Keeling).
We look forward to see many LIFT members at the next WAFL conference, which will be in 2 or 3 years from now. Although the COST Action may then be finished, it will be important to keep the conversations and research on positive animal welfare going.
Written by Dengsheng Sun
