Pig & Poultry Awards 2021
RSPCA Assured is proud of the members on its scheme. We work with all our members to ensure the highest standards of farm animal welfare.
With these awards, we want to highlight those members who go above and beyond for their animals, starting with our pig and poultry members.
What Are The RSPCA Assured Awards?
Our Chief Executive, Clive Brazier, introduces the awards in the following video. To sum up, the RSPCA Assured Awards are designed to recognise and reward members of the scheme who have:
- gone above and beyond the standards and/or expectations to help improve farm animal welfare
- been proactive in engaging and educating others about higher farm animal welfare
- demonstrated consistent dedication to caring for the environment and animals in general through sustainability efforts
This is the first RSPCA Assured awards programme, so this year, we are going to be piloting it with two groups of members: pigs and poultry. Next year, we hope to roll it out to the rest of our members.
How Do The Awards Work?
We wanted the awards to take place at the Pig and Poultry Trade Show in 2020, but due to Covid-19, we had to change our plans.
Instead, we have decided to host our awards online so you can find all the information on the nomination and judging process, and the award runners-up and winners on our website.
We are hosting an ‘Awards Week’, starting on Monday 20 September, on our social media channels to announce our winners and runners-up. So, keep an eye out for the announcements on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and check back on this page for updates throughout the week.
The Pig Award Categories
- Excellence in Higher Farm Animal Welfare
- Excellence in the Education of Higher Farm Animal Welfare
- Excellence in Sustainability and Higher Farm Animal Welfare
- Outstanding Contribution to Pig Welfare
The Poultry Award Categories
- Excellence in Higher Farm Animal Welfare
- Excellence in the Education of Higher Farm Animal Welfare
- Excellence in Sustainability and Higher Farm Animal Welfare
- Outstanding Contribution to Poultry Welfare
How Are The Winners Going To Be Selected?
The RSPCA Assured assessors and RSPCA farm livestock officers have worked hard over the past two years, nominating our pig and poultry members for these awards. The nominations were then shortlisted by the RSPCA Assured Field Assessment Manager, the Head of Farming, and the RSPCA Field Operations Manager. This shortlist will then be submitted to a panel of three independent judges to select the final winners.
The Judges
Professor David Main
David Main
David Main is a veterinary surgeon and Professor of Production, Animal Health and Welfare at the Royal Agriculture University at Cirencester. He is also a member of the RSPCA Assured Board of Trustees, and has research interests in science, animal welfare assessment and improvement strategies, and animal welfare education.
David was project co-ordinator of the AssureWel project, a collaboration with RSPCA and Soil Association, that aimed to embed welfare outcomes into the assurance process of certification schemes. He was principal investigator for the 'Healthy Feet' project that has been widely adopted by the dairy industry. He was also project coordinator for 'Hennovation', investigating the value of participatory approaches to innovation in the laying hen sector.
Dr Zoe Davies (pigs)
Zoe Davies
Chief executive of the National Pig Association, Dr Davies was previously a senior scientific officer at Defra. Before that, she was farm and trials manager at BQP. She studied welfare in outdoor sow systems at Cambac JMA Research for her PhD.
She was also a Nuffield Scholar, focusing on movers and shakers in global pig production, an investigation into ways that small lobbying organisations, such as the NPA, can work effectively with limited resources yet still have a significant impact.
Andrew Joret (poultry)
Andrew Joret
Andrew Joret is chair of BEIC. He is also chair of the Lion Technical Committee, responsible for the Lion Code of Practice and senior director of the global egg organisation, The International Egg Commission.
About the author
Emily Strachan
Emily is RSPCA Assured's Marketing Executive