China drafts, revises laws to safeguard animal welfare (Xinhua) Updated: 2005-11-04 11:36
China is pressing on with drafting and revising laws to safeguard the welfare
of poultry and livestock and to ensure food security and public health as the
bird flu problem has aroused the worldwide attention.
A new law on stock farming is being drafted and the existing law on animal
epidemic prevention is being revised, said Assistant Minister of Commerce Huang
Hai on Thursday.
But, he did not give more details about the drafting of the new law and the
revision of the existing law.
"Animal welfare is closely connected with food security and public health,"
Huang told an international forum on animal welfare and meat product security
held in Beijing.
Currently, incessant bird flu cases have triggered great concern around the
world.
"The bird flu that happened in some provinces in China last week has been
brought under control and no cases of human infection have been reported," said
Chen Xianyi, director of the Emergency Office under China's Ministry of Health.
Some European experts asserted that bird flu was connected with the improper
breeding of birds and poultry.
"The swine streptococosis endemic, a pig-borne disease, which took place in
southwest China's Sichuan Province this July was found to have direct links with
the foul environment for raising pigs," Huang said.
A total of 204 human infection cases were reported in the pig-borne epidemic,
leaving about 40 people dead.
"To safeguard animal welfare is not only a demonstration of progress of human
civilization and humanitarian spirit, but also closely linked with the health of
the human beings," he said.
It is universally acknowledged that such things are basic for safeguarding
animal welfare as offering a favorable living environment and breeding condition
for animals, satisfying their physiological and instinct demands, and avoiding
making them feel pain and fright when transporting and slaughtering them.
Animal welfare is by no means exclusive to the western countries - the idea
has long been existed in traditional Chinese culture, said Donald Broom,
chairman of the Council of Europe Farm Animal Protection Committee.
"No matter the idea of benevolence held by the Confucianism or the tradition
of protecting living things in Buddhism, they all show the concerns about the
little creatures," said Broom, also a professor at Cambridge University.
As modern animal husbandry provides rich food varieties for humans, the
public is becoming increasingly fearful about food security.
Earlier, mad cow triggered more than 8 billion US dollars of trade loss in
Britain. Foot-and-mouth disease occurred in Europe from 2001 to 2003 and caused
the killing of nearly 1 million heads of livestock and also, billions of dollars
of economic loss.
The bird flu outbreaks since 2004 have brought disaster to 16 countries and
regions. According to incomplete figures, at least 384,000 birds or poultry have
been infected, nearly 463,000 have died, and more than 140 million have been
slaughtered. The resultant economic and social losses are complex and yet to be
calculated.
"A little bit of carelessness could bring about a deadly strikeby a certain
animal disease on the animal husbandry of a certain region, and the ensuing food
security issues will then threaten public health," said Li Yuanping, director of
the Imports and Exports Food Security Department with the State Administration
of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.
Statistics show that China reported 600 million pigs, 300 million sheep, 50
million cattle and 1.2 billion poultry in 2004, and in the global meat
production, China's pork and mutton production ranked No.1 in the world; poultry
meat, No.2; and beef, No. 3.
To a large country of livestock and poultry and a large country that
slaughters and processes like China, it has unusual meaning to heed the issue of
animal welfare, said Joyce D'silva, chief executive officer of the Compassion in
World farming.
"As society progresses and becomes more civilized, animal welfare has become
an important criterion for testing the level of a nation's civilization as well
as an important condition for carrying out international trade," said Song Wei,
director of the teaching research office of the Business School of the
University of Science and Technology of China.
|