United Kingdom role model in sustainable meat and eggs

In the United Kingdom, the so-called intermediate segment in meat and eggs is more popular among consumers than it is in the Netherlands. The intermediate segment refers to products which, although not organic, are made using production methods which are more animal-friendly and sustainable than those used for standard products. According to Wageningen UR, the United Kingdom is a role model for the Netherlands in terms of the development of this intermediate segment.

Bedded pack barn forms interesting alternative to traditional cubicle-based housing

What do cows, dairy farmers and society want? This question formed the background to the study carried out by Wageningen UR Livestock Research into alternatives to the traditional cubicle-based housing for cows which became popular in the 1960s with the goal of improving efficiency.

Recently, due to animal welfare considerations, there has been a greater focus on providing cows with more space and reducing the amount of concrete and ironwork in their housing. The bedded pack barn offers dairy farmers the opportunity to achieve this on the condition that the requirements for a hygienic and dry top layer are complied with.

Better conditions for chickens raise emissions

The ban on battery poultry farming leads to higher emissions of ammonia and greenhouse gases and greater land use, assuming the same rate of egg production. This finding has come out of Sanne Dekker’s PhD research.

Research blog: alternatives for animal testing

RIKILT, part of Wageningen UR, has developed a chemical test that could spare over 300,000 laboratory animals per year. It is a test that can be used to ascertain whether shellfish such as mussels and oysters contain any toxins. It takes years to develop and validate this kind of chemical method and to convince policymakers that the legislation needs to be modified. This method of analysing shellfish measures both the substances and the quantities in which they occur with a high degree of accuracy.

This makes this test better than the test using animals: the detectability using the chemical method compared to using a rat or mouse can be as much as 10-100 times greater. The reduction in the use of laboratory animals might appear to be a drop in the ocean, but that is not the case according to Arjen Gerssen, a researcher at RIKILT. For Wageningen UR, the replacement of animal testing by alternative methods has become an important research field, he writes in his blog.