Joint letter to members of the Bundestag in the Agriculture and Food Committee
On the occasion of today's first reading of the Animal Husbandry Labeling Act in the Bundestag, the German Animal Welfare Federation, FOUR PAWS - Foundation for Animal Welfare and PROVIEH are jointly appealing to the members of the Agriculture and Food Committee: For labeling to become a support and not an obstacle to the restructuring of animal husbandry, fundamental changes to the draft law are necessary. Transparency for consumers and incentives for the restructuring of animal husbandry will only be achieved through the label with structural changes to the law.
Now that the fundamental criticism from associations - from animal welfare and consumer protection to the wider agricultural and food sector - and now also from the Federal Council has not resulted in any reaction, animal welfare organizations are publicly pushing for changes. It is unacceptable that the federal government wants to rush through the current bill and ignore all the often unanimous and overlapping demands for change. The animal welfare organizations demand that the members of parliament deal responsibly with the bill in the Bundestag. This is the only way to ensure a successful, transparent animal welfare label.
Thomas Schröder, President of the German Animal Welfare Federation, comments:
“The animal husbandry label presented is limited to the keeping of fattening pigs and thereby only depicts the status quo; there is a lack of momentum towards more animal welfare in stables. And if fattening pigs have to spend their life of just under 6 months over their own faeces, on slatted floors, without fresh air and natural light, this should be banned. And not labeled by the state, which euphemistically calls this “stable husbandry”.”
Anne Hamester from PROVIEH:
“In this form, statutory husbandry labeling must not be allowed to go through: It results in completely false incentives for the conversion of animal husbandry and consumers are even deceived by the labeling. Next year, MEPs will use their committee recommendation to decide whether the great potential of mandatory labeling of all animal products will still be used in the interests of animal and consumer protection or whether it will be carelessly squandered.”
Rüdiger Jürgensen, Member of the Executive Board of FOUR PAWS - Foundation for Animal Welfare:
“The present draft is a label that does not label. The label fails in its central task of providing consumers with transparent information and thus having a steering effect on the consumption of animal products. In particular, the proposed housing types 'barn', 'barn+place' and 'fresh air barn' do not provide a meaningful and distinguishable picture of how the animals are really kept in the barns and to what extent their species-specific needs are met. We call on the members of the German Bundestag to substantially revise the draft.”
Background:
Animal welfare associations have been calling for fundamental changes to the draft bill for months and are not alone in this. The current draft is rejected by a broad range of associations, from animal welfare and consumer protection to agricultural and food associations. The Federal Council recently followed suit and took a clear stance with over 60 amendments. Will the Bundestag straighten out the draft bill? Labeling lays the foundation for the urgently needed restructuring of animal husbandry.
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