Prioritizing Animal Welfare in Food Production
Leveraging technology to drive innovation for animal-based food production by ensuring care, nutrition, health, and welfare of farm animals
Relevant SDG
We are committed to a culture that supports animal welfare across our leading protein production equipment brands. AGCO’s Grain & Protein business manufactures feeding, watering, environmental control, bio-security, housing and building solutions for commercial egg, broiler and swine operations around the globe. We intend to be a leader in promoting awareness of advances in modern animal agriculture that help producers care for their animals and reduce environmental impact, while maximizing productivity to deliver safe and sustainable animal protein to the global food supply chain.
Engaging With Experts on Animal Welfare
Farm animal welfare is a collective issue for the food industry. As a proactive partner, we aim to bring together voices from diverse backgrounds to advance the field of animal protein production and provide insights on current animal welfare topics and collaborate on evolving welfare standards impacting farmers. Ultimately, we commit to engage regularly with independent experts to support the establishment of product development criteria to inform future product solutions and set an example that we hope others will follow.
Commitment:
Convene an expert animal welfare advisory panel in 2021
Commitment:
Develop and publish a corporate policy on animal welfare in 2021
Establish Smart Protein Research Partnerships
Recognizing the growing engagement from consumers for information on how their farm animals are raised, we will focus our research and development efforts on technologies that demonstrate optimized environmental conditions supporting animal welfare and productivity. Digitalization of the farm has tremendous potential to provide valuable insights to inform product and service evolution to farmers, and to provide food transparency that consumers care about.
Commitment:
Establish a research program in partnership with The University of Georgia Poultry Science department in 2021
Working With Academia To Advance Animal Welfare
October 2020 marked the beginning of a new collaboration with the University of Georgia (UGA), internationally recognized as a Poultry Science and Research Center, to further the evolution of Smart Broiler buildings using animal sensing systems to monitor bird behavior and provide insights into optimal animal welfare conditions. This partnership includes funding of approximately $600,000 to support the construction of a research building on UGA premises to conduct animal-centered research oriented towards upgrading our products, improving animal welfare and developing improved sensors to measure conditions at the animal level as well as two side-by-side partial scale broiler buildings to test new concepts and performance against an established base model.
Innovate for Animal Health
AGCO is in the process of articulating our strategy to design, engineer and manufacture industry-leading protein solutions, building on our advanced aviary systems, precision feeding systems and organic sheds that we have already brought to market and are developing further to meet producer needs as they evolve. We are building on the integrated systems offered by our Cumberland, AP and Tecno brands today that help poultry, swine and egg producers protect animal welfare, health and productivity with innovative climate control, housing, bio-security, feeding and watering systems.
Commitment:
Finalize a product strategy and roadmap in 2021 to deliver animal welfare innovations across AGCO's protein brand portfolio by 2025
Engineering Avian Welfare Into Product Design
2020 saw the launch of Tecno’s updated AS250 aviary layer system and the AS227, Tecno’s first aviary rearing system in Europe. Designed to meet the stringent and evolving requirements of European cage-free egg production, Tecno’s aviary layer and pullet systems are designed to give chicks and hens complete freedom of movement combined with automated and computerized watering, feeding, egg collection, ventilation and cleaning systems.
EDGE Gives Farmers the Full View
Digital innovation is at the forefront of modern animal agriculture. EDGE® is AGCO’s leading control platform for protein operations that helps farmers monitor their animals’ environment and collect information, including feed, watering, animal weight, ventilation, cooling, heating and lighting data 24/7. Since its launch, over 2,000 EDGE controllers have been installed into production operations globally, providing invaluable, real-time data that supports farmers in keeping their animals safe, stable and healthy.
