Author: ajlucas63

Animal Welfare

High rise piggeries and tech….

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I am all for Precision Farming, Smart Technology and data driven solutions…but this article in Pig Progress (!) caught my eye this morning for all the wrong reasons. There are now 62 of these high rise piggeries in production or under construction in China. The design is said to be suitable for all geographic locations and climate conditions. The company is now on Version 5, which means they are learning and improving all the time. This also means there are 4 previous versions, which are not quite so good and could be compromising the welfare of thousands of pigs. I […]

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BBFAW 2020 Report

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The Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare has completed its ninth cycle of reviewing food company websites and reporting on their animal welfare journey.  Despite the challenges of 2020, 23 businesses improved their ranking by at least one tier, with two of these businesses moving up two tiers. Unfortunately 15 businesses dropped at least one tier, but of these 11 could have dropped due to the change in methodology alone. That is to say, if they were not in a position to make any positive changes against their 2019 results (perhaps due to key staff being furloughed or attentions being […]

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A date for your diary 📅

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I’m delighted to be speaking about animal welfare at the virtual conference #TextileExchange20 . Session 5a on Nov. 6th covers “A Holistic View of Animal-Derived Materials”. The conference runs from Nov 2-6, where industry experts are gathering to talk about accelerating #sustainability and #climateaction in the textile sector. Conference topics include biodiversity, transparency, circularity, standards + preferred fibers and much more.  View the agenda and register at https://textileexchange.org/2020-conference/.   I look forward to “meeting” you there!

Animal Welfare

Listen, learn, support, and encourage

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In every walk of life, we will find good and bad. “One bad apple can spoil the bunch”, but only if we let it. How we behave when bad practice is brought to our attention defines us. Do we make a knee jerk reaction to condemn the whole bunch? Is it enough to identify the “bad apple” and remove it? Or do we listen, learn, support and encourage the bunch, so that they can identify the “bad apples” and take the necessary action to improve the processes so that the bad apples know their actions will not be tolerated. When […]

Animal Welfare

Celebrating my First Anniversary

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What a year it has been! On the 30th April 2019, after 34 years of continuous, full time employment, I gave back my laptop, mobile phone and company car, then caught the train home to Devon! On the 1st May, I launched my limited company. I was fortunate in having the buffer of a contract with NSF, to continue providing project management for one client. I knew this would not provide me with the volume or balance of work that I wanted or needed. 2019 was a year of networking; making new connections in the first 6 months, whilst I […]

STEM

STEM Ambassador

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In May, I set up my own business and at last found time to become a STEM Ambassador.
Today, I completed my first assignment, providing a practical lesson to bring Evolution, Genetics and Inheritance to life and providing industry context.

Animal Welfare

Networking at HRC

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An insightful day at Hotels, Restaurants and Catering (HRC), ExCel, London. Some inspiring people, promoting innovative products and brands. I discussed animal welfare with many brands, avoiding the growing range of vegan ones and unfortunately missing out on coffee, tea and alcohol! The most exciting brand I found today was Fruitpig (www.fruitpig.co.uk), a specialist butcher who produces black pudding, using fresh blood from a pig abattoir in Norfolk. So passionate about his products and their provenance. An interesting conversation with The Vogue Beds Group (www.voguebeds.co.uk) about where horse hair comes from! An animal based textile that had completely passed me by; […]

Animal Welfare

Supporting #WoolwithaButt

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Livestock production systems must re-consider any “norms” which rely on management interventions which involve mutilations. It is time to think outside the box and look for non-invasive solutions.  Let’s take responsibility for our industries, identify the challenges and find the solutions before they are forced upon us by consumer campaigns. Traditional Merino sheep strains in Australia have woolly wrinkles and folds around the tail and breech area, which are highly susceptible to flystrike. For years, the prevention method has included the removal of the folds of skin around the breech. There are several methods for removing this skin using sharp […]