Mr. Badi Besbes, FAO Senior Officer: Innovation and technology can improve animal health and welfare
On September 19-20th 2019, “3rd World Conference on Farm Animal Welfare” was held in Qingdao. The conference was jointly co-hosted by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and China Association for the Promotion of International Agricultural Cooperation (CAPIAC). The conference featured “Consumer-driven Quality Improvement: Assuring Animal and Human Health”. Mr. Badi Besbes, Senior Animal Production Officer of FAO, made a speech named “One Health, One Welfare - Key Approaches in Support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals”.
Badi Besbes pointed out that livestock products and animal products were closely related to the well-being of human beings. They not only could provide nutrition to human beings, but also promote human health. At the same time, excessive consumption of animal products could also cause further increase of non-communicable diseases in humans and pose risks for human health. Thus, he put forward the idea of“One Health, One Welfare”. “One Health” emphasized that human health and animal health were closely related. They were also closely related to the health of the ecological environment in which they existed. The concept of “One Welfare” referred to the relationship between animal welfare, human well-being and the physical environment of animals, human beings, and society. It was better to put animal welfare in a larger policy framework. This way, we could improve communication, coordination and cooperation."
But how to combine multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary knowledge and animal welfare was a big challenge for Badi Besbes. He said,“Good-quality animal welfare and health can lead to better productivity. More efficient use of animals can reduce carbon emissions per kilogram of production, reduce the use of antibiotics, protect farmers and consumers from diseases originated from food and meat, and ultimately increase consumer confidence in the entire livestock industry. Therefore, we can summarize all the aspects of the contribution through our sustainable development goals, food and nutrition, human well-being and growth, animal welfare and society, and climate change and natural resource applications. One Welfare and One Health is based on strong and effective cooperation."
At the end of the speech, Badi Besbes emphasized that “innovation and technology can help us solve a range of issues related to animal health and well-being, including new vaccines, rapid diagnosis, improved big data, information science, and disease-related information system. These areas can be further explored. Science and new technology can help us monitor the health and welfare of farm animals better, but the technologies cannot replace human care."
