Questions to Dr. Temple Grandin

1. Besides training with yourself and available university courses, are there any good auditing training courses to train inspectors or food safety auditors to audit humane handling and animal welfare? Many of the speakers today spoke about the value of plants receiving animal welfare audits, but no one spoke about where one can be trained to audit.

AFAC: There is also training through Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization, Inc. (PAACO). The purpose of PAACO is to promote the humane treatment of animals through education and certification of animal auditors and to promote the profession of animal auditors. Visit their website for more information.

2. You seem to suggest that the policy makers have less and less idea about the real world. Does that mean that we sometimes set unrealistic animal welfare standards?

When I stated that some policymakers have less and less idea about the real world I was referring to two problems. In some cases, policymakers create unrealistic welfare standards and, in other cases, they write vague guidelines that are difficult to enforce. To reduce the great divide between policymakers and the world of practical things such as agriculture; it is ESSENTIAL for policymakers to visit farms, slaughter plants, ranches, and feedlots. In the U.S., the gulf between animal agriculture and our policymakers in Washington is probably wider than in Canada. Recently I took Senate staffers and top USDA administrators on a tour of two large slaughter plants. As an industry, animal agriculture must open its doors and show what we do. Policymakers need to see for themselves how agriculture works.