CPF Humane Farming Model with Animal Welfare Innovations 

Charoen Pokphand Foods Public Company Limited (CPF) has developed animal welfare innovations and undertaken advanced farm technologies to promote animal welfare for husbandry, which support a real-time monitoring to guarantee high quality meat and safety throughout the supply chain.  

Dr. Payungsak Somyanontanakul (D.V.M.), vice president and head of Animal Welfare Committee of CPF, said CPF is committed to research and development for innovations that promote well-being of animals in all conditions as well as disease prevention. The practice has aligned with humane principles and five freedoms of animal welfare as its groundwork to take care of all animals in livestock and aquaculture farms. These practices will ensure that animals are comfortable with enough foods, free to express normal behaviours, which encourage animals’ good health, sickless without antibiotic treatment and any growth hormones. The company has also operated a biosecurity system for disease prevention to ensure all animals are safe from any animal epidemics in line with food security and sustainable production guidelines. 

In 2020, CPF was the first company in Thailand to implement Birdoo Smart Eyes in broiler farms, which is an automated remote control with real-time monitoring to observe animal health such as chicken weight, water and diet. The technology will show the result via mobile application and help analyzing and predicting with rapid outcome. Moreover, the company also launched smart farm innovations by installing computer systems and automation to collect data, with accurate assessment to facilitate farm management. It will keep chickens in a good and appropriate environment throughout the farming period. Actually, CCTV has helped observe animal abnormalities in the farm to reduce risk and loss for better productivity

CPF has also implemented animal welfare innovation in many forms to encourage animal behaviors. For instance, its laying hen business has developed a prototype farm for free-range organic broilers where broilers can roam freely on grass lawns outside the housing and freely express their natural behaviours. The company also transfers this knowledge to farmers at Nong Wha Agricultural Village at Chachoengsao province, which also has been certified Organic Livestock from the Livestock Development Department. Moreover, the cage free technology has been implemented to encourage farmers in Malaysia and Laos. 

“CPF recognizes that animal welfare innovation is an important contributing factor to ensure healthy animals following the goal of producing good quality and safe meat through sustainable production.

Currently, 100% of the animals raised by the Company are bred to align with five-freedom principles with responsible and prudent use of antibiotics. These will guarantee safe food quality and food security for consumers,” Dr. Pyungsak said.  

Dr. Damnoen Chaturawitwong (D.V.M.),  Senior Vice President of the Swine Veterinary Service Department of CPF, said swine business has developed the innovation that helped break the ice among piglets after weaning to living together in flocks. Some herbal extract powder or odorous disinfectant that can be safely sprayed on weaning piglets to make them all smell the same so that they accept each other more rapidly and reduce natural fighting behaviors, as they have never met each other before. Such innovation helps reduce stress to animals as well as physical wounds from fighting. The innovation encourages healthy pigs throughout the breeding period. 

In addition, they had created an automatic sliding bridge to move pigs to the transport vehicle faster. This practice has allowed pig walked up on a sloped way without trauma and stress. Smooth walking up will result in positive effects on pork quality until reaching the slaughterhouse.

Due to the commitment on innovation and technology together with animal welfare principles, CPF has been promoted to Tier 3 from Tier 4 in the Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare Report (BBFAW) 2020, with outstanding ratings in innovation and leadership from its investment in animal feed and animal husbandry research and development. In addition, the launch of a developed cage-free laying hen farm which is the first company in Thailand to be certified cage-free laying hen farm standard by the Department of Livestock Development. Moreover, the company also gained a high score in the performance reporting section from information disclosure and animal welfare promotion systematically.