Tweet
The scientific objective is to support "research on farmed animals that is strategically relevant to the food producing animal industry sectors."
Hopefully there'll be recognition that the industry needs not just productivity and biosecurity, but also an acceptable degree of welfare in animal production systems; at the end of the day welfare considerations have moved up the strategic agenda in recent years with Europe moving ahead of other parts of the world. The economic situation in Greece and Spain is dire, but I suspect that many more people in the UK will no longer have the luxury of being able to afford the most expensive niche 'welfare' products that perhaps Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall would have them buy. Nevertheless, it can't be denied that animal welfare is both an economic and strategic consideration in animal productions systems.
The contributors
to ARC are:- Cobb
- Genus
- Centre for Dairy Information
- Merial
- Moredun Scientific
- MSD Animal Health
- Scottish Salmon Producers' Organisation
- Aviagen
- Pfizer Animal Health
- BPEX
- EBLEX
- Dairy Co
I'm guessing that the contributions these companies make are tax-deductible. If not, then they should be because perhaps more companies in the animal health related sectors would wake up to the fact that either they, or their shareholders can contribute to the sector without any cost to them; companies have to pay dividends or they go out of business, but a public contribution to a worthy animal welfare cause should give companies that are prepared to contribute an improved profile in the sector. Longer term perhaps there'd be a way of encouraging shareholders to legally evade the tax on their dividends by diverting them to such a worthy cause.
Maybe if more farmers knew about this they'd be prepared to mitigate their own tax liability by contributing to a scheme like this....at no cost to them...maybe that's the kind of tax advice that farmers need...
We need more tax evasion to help animal welfare....
