The nationwide Fokus Tierwohl network was established to provide long-term support to livestock farmers in Germany and to help them prioritise animal welfare, environmental protection, production quality and market orientation.
The joint project aims to improve the transfer of knowledge into practice in order to make pig, poultry and cattle farms in Germany fit for the future in terms of animal-welfare-friendly, environmentally sound and sustainable livestock farming.
For the first time, this network brings together specialist knowledge, organises the exchange of experience between practitioners, scientists, consultants and other groups, and thereby facilitates and promotes knowledge-sharing within the sector.
Over a period of three years, a wide range of events across Germany will be used to convey to livestock farmers the consolidated, processed and focused knowledge on animal-welfare-friendly husbandry of cattle, pigs and poultry. The consolidation of scientific data, the latest findings from applied research, practical experience, animal welfare model and demonstration projects (MuD) or other current projects takes place in species-specific offices. These offices collect and process the latest data in close coordination with the network partners and make it available to project partners in the federal states for knowledge transfer.
The Focus on Animal Welfare network is embedded within the Federal Livestock Farming Programme. The Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Home Affairs (BMLEH) has commissioned the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) to act as the project sponsor.
Network coordination:
Partners:
- Bavarian State Institute for Agriculture
- Boxberg Education and Knowledge Centre
- Eifel Rural Services Centre
- DLG e.V.
- FiBL Germany e. V.
- State Office for Occupational Safety, Consumer Protection and Health – Animal Welfare Advisory Service
- Bremen Chamber of Agriculture
- Hamburg Chamber of Agriculture
- Lower Saxony Chamber of Agriculture
- North Rhine-Westphalia Chamber of Agriculture
- Saarland Chamber of Agriculture
- Hesse State Agricultural Agency
- State Research Institute for Agriculture and Fisheries, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
- State Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture of Saxony-Anhalt
- Chamber of Agriculture of Schleswig-Holstein
- Baden-Württemberg Agricultural Centre
- Saxony State Office for the Environment, Agriculture and Geology
- Thuringian State Office for Agriculture and Rural Areas
