NATIONAL FEDERAL ANIMAL WELFARE GUIDELINESare the legal guidelines which every grower in Australia has to meet. These Guidelines may be captured in legislation on a state by state basis – most states do, some states modify them slightly. Importantly, the RSPCA, ACMF and other key groups sit on the panel which develops the National Federal Guidelines. They are the ONLY standards endorsed by all key groups in Australia, including governments.
(The RSPCA also has separate that you have to meet if you are going to produce RSPCA Certified chicken or turkey. Anything beyond the National Federal Guidelines is marketing puffery for the monetary benefit of RSPCA and the supermarkets, since there is no evidence from the 16 years of the scheme that animal welfare benefits beyond that in the current National Guidelines.)
The new National Guidelines are being adopted into state legislation in 2025. There are a few changes that you MUST know about and MUST adhere to. These are listed below.
The National Guidelines are divided into two levels: the things you MUST do, and the things you CAN do if you wish. Notably many of the can-do items tend to become “must-do” in the future so if you are planning new shedding it’s worth thinking about the “can-do” items.
The new “MUST” items are listed as follows:
BY 1 JULY 2025:
SA 3.7 …a person in charge must ensure firefighting equipment is available and maintained for all indoor housing systems.
SA 4.8 …a person in charge of poultry (excluding caged layer hens in commercial production) must provide reasonable access to appropriate substrate for pecking, foraging and scratching.
SA 5.3 …a person in charge of poultry kept in housing with access to an outdoor area must encourage use of the outdoor range by providing:
access to appropriately located shade and shelter from predators
opportunities to perform foraging and scratching behaviours
reasonable number and size of access points.
SA 6.2 …a person in charge must ensure that the light intensity during light periods for young poultry for the first 3 days after hatching is at least 20 lux at bird level.
SA 6.3 …a person in charge must ensure that the light intensity for poultry is at least 10 lux at bird level during light periods, except under veterinary supervision to control an outbreak of pecking and/or cannibalism for a limited period.
SA 6.5 …a person in charge must ensure poultry are provided a minimum total of at least 6 hours of darkness within a 24-hour period with at least one uninterrupted period of darkness of at least 4 hours, except:
birds up to 7 days of age
to prevent huddling or clumping behaviours during very hot weather
poultry on the day of pick-up
laying and breeder birds up to 16 weeks of age
during a disease outbreak under veterinary supervision.
SA 7.3 …a person in charge of poultry in sheds used for commercial production must monitor ammonia levels and ensure immediate corrective action is taken if ammonia levels exceed 15 ppm at bird level in sheds.
By 1 July 2032
SA 5.6 …a person in charge must ensure that poultry, other than ratites, are able to be confined to manage welfare risks to birds in the outdoor area. Confinement must comply with housing standards in A4 Facilities and equipment, as well as stocking densities for the relevant species.
You should read and understand the whole guideline and do a compliance check against ALL the elements. The Guidelines can be found HERE
The RSPCA is choosing to risk the health and safety of the entire meat poultry industry right across Australia with its current Accreditation (and proposed future replacement, Certification) scheme in three ways:
1. The Current Scheme
ACGC has discovered that RSPCA is so intent on litter health that farmers are having to rotary hoe their litter at full density – resulting in a huge risk of “crowd crush” and death, or panicked birds running into the hoe blades and dying. RSPCA is aware of this and DOESN’T APPEAR TO CARE, provided the litter looks friable. In one recent case, a farmer was SUSPENDED from the scheme because he refused to hoe the litter (10% under the lateral waterlines was damp) for the welfare of the birds! Moreover we are aware of a number of farms that have had cases of florid, treatable (but untreated) disease that were approved by RSPCA!
Not only that, in the 16 years in which the scheme has been operating we have NO independent data to suggest that bird welfare is any better than that which would have been the case under Federal Government National Guidelines. The current scheme appears to be more a facilities scheme than a welfare scheme in at least some respects, and a marketing scheme rather than being based on proven science. Because of the truly significant penalty meted out to both the suspended farmer and the processor, ACGC has made a formal complaint to ACCC (who is, or should be, concerned with issues of misleading and deceptive conduct, and unconscionabillity). SEE COMPLAINT TO ACCC HERE.
2. The Proposed New Certification Scheme
ACGC has objected to the new RSPCA proposals for WINDOWS in all new sheds, outdoor areas in new sheds, slow growing breeds (which may not be acceptable to the consumer!) and and other elements that RSPCA is trying to justify on the grounds that these MIGHT (possibly, could, etc) improve bird welfare. Unless and until there is quality, independent science to justify any future changes, AND data demonstrating that there WILL be incremental improvement over both the current scheme and the federal government guidelines, meat poultry farmers should NOT have to spend $$ on a “maybe”. SEE ACGC RESPONSE TO THE PROPOSALS HERE
3. The RSPCA Audit Process
ACGC has discovered potentially the single most blatant breach of biosecurity by any agency outside the processors. The RSPCA has admitted to auditing UP TO 15 FARMS WEEK, in FULL knowledge of the biosecurity risks given that the scheme is operated by a veterinarian, and RSPCA sits on the National Guidelines Committee. That means going to up to 5 farms in a day!
Growers are supposed to require any person who does not meet these guidelines to ask the person to leave the property. The only exception to this rule are processor staff and contractors. This is controversial in biosecurity terms and is under review, but it is currently a contractual requirement. Notably, the RSPCA auditors are NOT processor contractors.
This is a shocking and negligent denial of the most basic biosecurity measures – measures designed to protect animal welfare. That RSPCA should even consider that this is OK, is appalling. Worse, RSPCA auditors are not just “visiting a farm” – they are tromping from shed to shed, putting fingers into drinker spigots, taking feed from trays for inspection, walking through faeces and turning over litter, getting fomites on their skin and equipment and then moving from farm to farm.
RSPCA argues that “they have been doing it this way for 15 years” – 15 years in which Australia and the industry have had to pay for a number of emergency disease outbreaks, and 15 years in which the whole importance of biosecurity has been understood and standards developed and (supposedly) enforced.
RSPCA argues that they are accompanied by processor staff – who have no choice in the matter as the processors have been forced into the scheme by the deal between RSPCA and the supermarkets and have many millions of dollars to lose if they speak out.
RSPCA argues that on a few occasions they have spotted disease in the sheds and cancelled the audits, and the following ones that week– but take no account of diseases in the infectious/incubation stage or clinical disease that they simply haven’t spotted.
RSPCA argues that the observe a stand down period of 48 hours between PROCESSORS – when the biosecurity risk is between FARMS.
RSPCA argues that they wear “protective clothing” – but have no consideration for walking around the contaminated parking area before and after the protective gear is removed, no consideration of fomites and no consideration of scientifically agreed industry norms for biosecurity. Auditors apparently DO NOT wear hair covering, gloves or masks and equipment is NOT bagged. Even then, there is potential for disease transmission via the throat, nose or conjunctival secretions of an auditor.
To our knowledge, there is no information provided as to whether RSPCA auditors have any birds at home.
Meat poultry farmers have NOT signed up for this! NOBODY is against ongoing improvements in animal welfare and NOBODY is suggesting that animal welfare isn’t important, but it is past time that RSPCA began to behave ethically, transparently, and with a genuine respect for farm norms.
In the wake of the H7 “local” Avian Influenza outbreaks in Vic, NSW and ACT, there has been a rush of bureaucratic survey-taking, and requests for input and opinion, all hoping that meat poultry growers tell government departments how wonderfully they handled the outbreak. Sadly, they are receiving the truth: the good, the bad and the ugly. at $10-12 MILLION per farm and farms out of production for nearly 6 months, nobody can be really happy about the outcome. One positive thing has been the appointment of an Efficiency Analyst, who has been valuable in identifying where things went wrong.
Amongst this has been a review of the Biosecurity Agreement – that funding arrangement that splits the cost of outbreaks according to the disease, the industry and the potential for the disease to infect humans.
Did you know that the industry (via a biosecurity levy on chicks) is still paying for it’s share of the Newcastle Disease outbreak in 2000?
The industry “share” of Avian Influenza is less – because AI has the potential to be a human disease. Still, this industry will be paying for part of the “local” outbreak, and any H5N1 “nasty” strain in the future.
You might recall the “old” National Competition Policy and Principles. That’s the highy theoretical, economist-driven, philosophical document that resulted in removal of the Meat Poultry growers’ Countervailing power legislation in all states, resulting in grower not even having a full ability to use delegates to negotiate thier comtacts for them. Even the ACCC law changes in 2023 (changes to the Australian Consumer Law) did not provide growers with any significant countervailing power, although Class Exemptions that allow growers to compare contracts and prices have been a bit useful.
Well, The government’s at it again. Now they want to overhaul the National Competition Policy and Principles – so they went out to consultation for a selected few. ACGC was notified of this review 1 working day before close of submissions – so it was “all hands to the wheel”. The overarching theme is that competition policy ONLY works when there is strong regulatory backup (like a mandatory Code, for example) – otherwise competition descends into thuggery and coercion. We suggest every member review the ACGC response – you’d bet the processors are!
The old National Water Plan, published in the early 2000’s, brought us (eventually)
the highly contested Murray Darling Basin Plan
State goverments getting involved in your dam storages
a trading scheme for water that works poorly during drought….. and so on.
NOW the government wants to impose a NEW National Water Plan. It appears that they were very secretive about it – even though meat poultry are BIG (if very efficient) users of water, there was no consultation at all and the only way we found out was becuase the SA DPI (“PIRSA”) was so horrified by what they saw that they contacted all the Agricultural peak bodies who’s industries operate in South Australia adn brought it to all our attention.
The proposed new Plan:
does NOT consider water use for food production,
does not consider any water use at all for livestock
gives Indigenous “cultural” water needs/use exactly the same weighting in water allocation as drinking water for “townies”,
does NOT consider desalination as an option for water, even in urban areas,
proposes that things can be changed later by “schedules” that are not present in the plan (sound like a meat poultry contract?)
quotes “indigenous needs” from a report that states on page 3 that the views of the writers do not represent Indigenous peoples……and so on.
ACGC was caught on short notice and was not able to circulate this to all members, but did ask Directors (and their organisations), Associate Members and policy Councillors for comment – and we were surprised how much interest and comment there was! This thing has a way to play out, and now ACGC has clearly identified that it is a stakeholder we should be included in further consultations.
ACGC has discovered potentially the single most blatant breach of biosecurity by any agency outside the processors. The RSPCA has admitted to auditing UP TO 15 FARMS WEEK, in FULL knowledge of the biosecurity risks given that the scheme is operated by a veterinarian, and RSPCA sits on the National Guidelines Committee. That means going to up to 5 farms in a day!
Recent Comments