Farm animal welfare conference in South Korea
May 4, 2007
Seoul, 27 April: Leading animal welfare groups, the Korean Animal Welfare Association (KAWA) and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) hosted the country’s first farm animal welfare conference.
Attended by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF), consumer groups, farming associations, media representatives and academic specialists, the conference gathered together some of South Korea’s key agricultural players to call for better welfare protection for the country’s farm animals.
WSPA Programmes Manager, Amy Firth, who gave a speech at the conference, commented: “South Korea is one of the largest producers of pigs in Asia, rearing over 14.6 million animals in 2004 alone. Without adequate awareness or provisions governing how these animals are reared, their welfare is often forgotten.”
Work to stop the suffering of South Korea’s farm animals has only just begun and there is a long journey ahead of us. Nonetheless, it is encouraging to see such a large turnout at today’s conference; it shows that this is an issue of importance to the South Korean people.”
The conference also saw the preliminary launch of a video and report produced by KAWA and WSPA documenting the welfare of South Korea’s pigs. The airing of the video drew gasps from the audience and reduced several people to tears. The publications, which will be publicly launched in May, combine the results of a year-long investigation and are the first of their kind in the country.
Amy Firth further commented: “This much needed investigation revealed the horrendous suffering endured by so many of South Korea’s pigs and the urgent need to take action. As with so many of the countries WSPA works in, farm animal welfare is all too often overlooked in favour of profit and intensification.”
However, thanks to the generosity of our supporters, WSPA has been able to pledge its support to KAWA to ensure farm animals are no longer the forgotten victims of big business in South Korea.”