PPILOW

Poultry and Pig Low-input and Organic production systems’ Welfare

The PPILOW project aims to co-construct through a multi-actor approach solutions to improve the welfare of poultry and pigs reared in organic and low-input outdoor farming systems.   

Innovation

• The first originality of the PPILOW project is the participatory approach, involving all actors of the production chain from farmers to consumers (including breeders, hatcheries, providers, processors, retailers…), citizens, scientists and policy makers, for proposing and studying welfare improvement levers. 
 
• The second originality of the project is to provide a combination of practical solutions for welfare improvement that can be applied on a pan European basis with specific adjustments depending on the target market (national legislation or preferences). 
 

 Objectives

1. Identify barriers to welfare of organic and low-input outdoor-reared poultry and pig, by taking an inventory of farming practices considering stakeholders’ and citizens’ expectations and priorities that will be considered in ii) and iii). 
 
2. Co-create, with end-users, innovative breeding, rearing strategies and techniques for improving the welfare of animals by avoiding mutilations (such as piglet castration or beak trimming in poultry), the elimination of one day-old layer male chicks, favouring positive behaviours, and improving health and robustness in pigs and poultry. 
 
3. Build, test, share and adopt self-assessment tools that allow trained farmers and technicians to monitor the animal welfare on-farm in order to identify critical periods and to ensure corrective welfare management practices by production actors. 
 
4. Test experimentally and on-farm the potential of the innovations identified in i), ii) and iii) through the participatory involvement of practitioners, technicians and scientists. 
 
5. Realize multi-criteria analyses of the most promising breeding and rearing strategies to evaluate their economic, social and environmental impacts and sustainability according to the ‘One Welfare’ concept. 
 
6. Ensure the uptake of the project results by end-users by appropriate dissemination activities (trainings, EIP abstracts…) and the close involvement of national practitioners groups throughout the EU to facilitate change. 

Major output

Provision of decision tools and guidelines for best practices following the One Welfare concept usable by production actors that could help the standardization of organic and outdoor system rules in the European Union (EU), for which a high variability exists. 

Business models will also be created for the use of high-quality products issued from the adoption of PPILOW strategies to improve welfare in organic and low-input outdoor farming systems for poultry and pig production. 

Find more about animal welfare and download the Ppilow Apps here