"Learning from the best" is the slogan that defines the European WelFarmers project.
The project will focus on four topics related to animal welfare: banning crates, pigs with intact tails, avoiding castration, and space and flooring for nursery and finishing pigs.
The best-performing farms within the eight participating European countries will be identified during the project. These countries represent more than 50% of European pig production.
The producer associations in each country will help find the three best farms in the country in each of the four management systems.
Once the 96 candidate farms have been selected (each of the eight countries will contribute three from each of the four topics), a judging panel called the Thematic Group, made up of experts in each topic from the academic world, industry, producer organizations, consultants, and veterinarians, will choose the 12 winners (three in each of the four topics).
Materials will be created based on visits to the winning farms to disseminate these best practices.
This process will be repeated twice, so there will be a total of 24 winning farms (12 in each round).
333's role will be to disseminate the entire project. We have created a listing for WelFarmers in our directory and are working on the WelFarmers website and social media. We will also archive all outreach materials on best practices and report on the 24 winning farms.
The project, which started on January 1, 2024, will last three years and is included in the Horizon Europe Program.