Good Husbandry Grants may be good news for small-scale livestock producers

The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), a non-profit founded in 1951 “to reduce the sum total of pain and fear inflicted on animals by people,” established Animal Welfare Approved in 2006 to provide livestock producers and consumers with food labeling that promotes adherence to animal husbandry and slaughter standards.  Last year AWI achieved financial footing that will allow the program to offer Good Husbandry Grants — of up to $5,000 — to farmers with ideas for projects that will improve farm animal welfare. Examples of proposals that secured grants last year include a low-stress loading facility that a network of Nebraska farmers now share, and a mobile processing facility for a group of North Carolina poultry producers. Grant applications are now being accepted for the 2009 Good Husbandry Grants and the application deadline is Oct. 1. The selection committee’s four areas of specific interest for the 2009 funding cycle are genetics, outdoor access (mobile housing in particular), welfare improvements in the slaughter process, and non-lethal predator control.