Bogotá, Colombia – In order to improve the life quality of livestock sheep and cattle, the project “A Welfare for the Resilience of Livestock Farms” was presented. This initiative is led in Colombia by AGROSAVIA.
As a part of its initial phase, knowledge management workshops were held on March 3 in Bogotá and on March 5 in Villavicencio, where researchers, producers and technicians participated in the selection and prioritization of welfare practices applicable to livestock farms.
In partnership with UNIAGRARIA and FEDEGÁN, the initiative was developed in two strategic regions:
- The High Tropic (Cundinamarca and Boyacá), focused on sheep production.
- The Low Tropic (Meta), focused on fattening cattle production.
In these territories, farms will be established to function as animal welfare innovation and experimentation units.
“The challenge is big, but also very nice,” said Fredy Enrique García Castro, Ph.D. researcher at AGROSAVIA's Tibaitatá Research Center. "It involves educating, sharing knowledge with producers and generating real changes in livestock management. By promoting animal welfare, we also seek to improve producers' quality of life and income."
Eliezer Hernández, technical secretary of the Boyacá department's sheep and goat chain, highlighted the importance of the project:
"Producers in the department have many needs, and seeing this program come to Boyacá is very positive. We hope it will contribute to improve the competitiveness and productivity of sheep farms, allowing us to offer a better final product for the animal processing plant. The information shared has been very interesting and we thank the AGROSAVIA scientists for having taken us into account."
Next stage of the will focus on training technicians who will support the implementation of these practices in each region. The project also seeks to strengthen the cooperation network between producers and experts from Colombia, Chile and Argentina, in order to exchange experiences and promote animal welfare in Latin American livestock systems.
More information: Ganaderos contarán con herramientas de buenas prácticas de bienestar animal
