After a busy month of traveling the province, Alberta Farm Animal Care has wrapped up their focus groups.

The group held discussions at Fairview, Vermillion, Edmonton, Olds and Lethbridge as part of their Livestock Welfare Engagement Project.

The intention of the project is to build a clear picture and understanding of the work being done related to welfare in Alberta's livestock sector and report the findings to the Alberta Government.

Alberta Farm Animal Care's Marketing and Membership Manager, Kristen Hall, says they had a mix of producers, students, veterinarian related industry members and government workers come to their focus groups.

"In regards to what was talked about, it was kind of all based around communications, education and extension were kind of everyone's priorities."

She says, they didn't get quite as many people out as they were expecting, but the smaller environment encouraged people to express their differing opinions they may not have shared in a larger crowd.

She adds, another part of the Engagement Project was collecting survey responses from members of the livestock industry where they had over 575 responses.

"The number of surveys just amazed me, especially considering a lot of those responses were from producers, which is something that was really important for us to get responses from, and having those producers being so busy too is really amazing."

Hall says, now they have the job of compiling all the information for the government, however they don't quite know what the province plans to do with it yet.

 

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