I enjoy keeping busy, all the more so if I am busy trying to change the world… for the better, I hope.
That is why I was particularly glad to be invited to speak at the 5th International Livestock Forum in Medellin in September.
I consider Latin America to be at present the most dynamic area of the world in terms of progress in farm animal welfare, and Colombia is definitely one of the keenest countries when it comes to transforming ideas into concrete action. Both there and in the rest of Latin America, radical changes can happen, and at a fast pace, if the intentions increasingly expressed by local governments, farmers, farmers’ organisations, academics and animal welfare NGOs are implemented. I was happy to see that Brazil has decided to use the reduction of import tariffs as a tool to facilitate the adoption of farming systems in which sow stalls are abandoned in favour of group housing. Add to this the pig-friendly policies adopted by McDonald’s in Latin America and the Caribbean and you will get some idea of the type and scale of changes that are possible.
I hope that this website, the AWAT Newsletter, the AWAT Facebook and Twitter pages are contributing to these advances in their own small way, and that the ideas I shared with the audience in Medellin will rapidly bloom into actual progress.
So, many thanks to all you visitors to this website, subscribers to the Newsletter and visitors to the Facebook and Twitter pages for your interest in the news and updates, and special thanks again to the site’s web designer and web manager, Caterina Moreddu, and to its copy editor, Adam Thorn, for their valuable support.
As always, thank you for visiting this website,
