Technological breeding: the app to check animal welfare

Over the past 70 years, theindustry produced farms increasingly large and pollutingwith production of low quality meat at the expense of human health and also of animals that no longer live in natural conditions. Not to mention that I small breeders are overwhelmed and reduced to marginal roles where however they allowbalance of territory it is a’quality agriculture.

slow food it started from the consideration that good breeding is essential for good farming, to rethink breeding and seek a natural relationship with animals and the land. Thanks to the project PPILOWwith the EU’s contribution, the aim is to find solutions to improve the animal welfare.

Two apps have been developed: ‘Piglow’ to assess the welfare of pigs and ‘ebene’ for the welfare of poultry in organic farms low impact outdoors. These will be used by breeders, technicians and veterinarians to mark boundaries and improve animal welfare.

The two free apps are based on a series of questions about farm management and animal behavior, and address the four principles of: Well-being quality: good nutrition, good health, good housing and adequate behaviour.

The evaluation, which lasts an hour, is illustrated step by step by the app that will guide the farmer in the process through images and information. The results are immediately visible by means of a radar map and with the subsequent analyzes the results will be visible at the same time to understand whether the score is improved or not compared to the previous evaluation.

In this way it is possible to get an objective assessment of the welfare of the animals and to track the improvements over time. This allows us to understand what the weaknesses are and where we can intervene to improve them.