11 April 2025
EU Partnership in Animal Health & Welfare
Keelin O’Driscoll tells us about a new EU Partnership in Animal Health & Welfare, an ambitious research and innovation initiative the European Commission (EC) has funded to control infectious diseases of animals, and to promote animal welfare.
Launched in 2024, the Partnership is expected to invest €360 million over seven years. It encourages collaboration between all relevant sectors and promotes a One Health and One Welfare approach. This will help create broader social benefits. The goals of the Partnership align with the European Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy. These aim to support a fair, healthy, and environmentally friendly food system.
Teagasc is contributing to the Partnership both as a Research Performing Organisation and a Funding Organisation. The research work is led by Keelin O’Driscoll. The Partnership is organised into 22 different actions. Teagasc researchers are leading tasks in two of them.
Sustainable Animal Welfare and Livestock Systems
Improving animal welfare is key to building more ethical and sustainable farming systems. This is a major focus of the EU’s Farm to Fork strategy.
However, society also expects farming to reduce its environmental impact. In fact, there is growing demand for livestock systems to offer environmental benefits. These include:
- Reducing emissions
- Storing carbon in the soil
- Using waste from green protein production
To meet these expectations, farming systems must also be economically viable and offer good working conditions.
Project Goals
This action brings together experts in:
- Animal welfare, health, and science
- Sustainability, including economic, social, and environmental factors
Together, they will:
- Develop shared tools to assess sustainability
- Use a multi-criteria approach
- Identify knowledge gaps
- Explore innovations through literature and case studies
The goal is to understand the links between animal welfare and other areas of sustainability. This includes looking at how welfare-focused systems affect climate impact, and vice versa.
Most tools used to assess sustainability in livestock systems do not include direct animal-based welfare measures. This project aims to change that.
We will carry out:
- A survey of existing tools used in the EU
- A workshop to review sustainability indicators
- Work to harmonise measurement methods
This research fits well with other Teagasc projects, such as reducing the environmental impact of pig farming.
Knowledge Platform for Animal Welfare
The second action Teagasc is leading involves creating a Knowledge Platform. The aim is to gather and share scientific and technical information on animal welfare.
This platform will:
- Help design and improve monitoring systems
- Build a strong network of stakeholders
- Collect and analyse data on welfare indicators
- Cover welfare assessments on farms, during transport, and at slaughter
Goals of the Platform
- Standardise animal welfare indicators
- Develop common monitoring methods
- Allow benchmarking between regions and over time
- Design a flexible, central data model for the EU
Teagasc will coordinate communication and sharing of information for this part of the project.
Working with Stakeholders
We plan to keep industry stakeholders updated throughout the project. We also want to hear from people and organisations with experience in these areas. Your input will help shape our work and ensure the results are relevant and useful across the sector.