PAACO Continues to Innovate Animal Welfare Auditor Training

The global COVID-19 pandemic caused the Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization (PAACO) to redesign its entire training schedule and transition to virtual delivery in 2020. Because demand for certification and animal welfare training continued, PAACO trained more than 500 attendees in 2020, many of whom will now seek certification.

PAACO will consider a return to in-person training in the second half of 2021 but found many advantages to training using the new virtual format. “We learned that providing virtual training allows many more people around the globe to access PAACO Welfare Auditor Training,” observed PAACO Executive Director Collette Kaster. Interest in animal welfare improvement and oversight continues to grow, and the expanded audience has led PAACO to offer virtual and/or hybrid training to their upcoming schedule to meet the additional demand.

PAACO trains welfare auditors for the swine, dairy, poultry, beef cattle, feedlot, and meat packing industries, increasingly on a global basis. As an example, meat plant welfare auditor training will be offered with a fully translated Spanish version in May.

PAACO 2021 Training Schedule (some dates TBD)

Dairy Welfare Auditor Training                      April 26-29                  Virtual

Meat Plant Welfare Auditor Training             May 18-20                   Virtual

with Spanish Language Translation

Beef Feedlot Welfare Auditor Training          June                             Kansas

September                  Nebraska/Iowa

Poultry Welfare Auditor Training                   July 13-15                    Virtual

On-Farm Swine Welfare Auditor Training      August/September      South Dakota/Virtual

Meat Plant Welfare Auditor Training             October                       Nebraska/Virtual

More information on each training event can be found online at www.animalauditor.org.

PAACO’s mission is to promote animal welfare through auditor training and audit certification. Certification of industry audits continues at a strong pace with the certification of two new audits: National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) U.S. Cattle Industry Feedyard Audit and Peco Foods broiler audit. Kaster remarked, “Several more audits are in the certification process and many of those that were initially certified are undergoing their five-year reviews.” PAACO has now certified 14 audits in a variety of industry sectors.

Introducing Quarterly Webinars

Beginning in 2021, as part of their Continuing Education (CE) program, PAACO will offer webinars at no cost to all certified auditors. The original webinar will be delivered live, then the recorded event will be available on demand on the PAACO website. Viewing the webinar will count toward at least one hour of CE. The first of these webinars was held on February 11 with Dr. Temple Grandin and four of her former students who have carried on her legacy through their work in animal welfare, providing their thoughts on her influence on them and the livestock community. This recording is available at animalauditor.org. Upcoming live webinars begin at 12:00 pm CST on the following dates:

April 13 –         What’s New with Audit Tools?

Industry representatives will present updates to the 2021 version of their audit tools.

July 20 –          Understanding Enrichments

As audits and production guidelines evolve, we see the requirement for enrichment added across species. Presenters will provide a quick look at what the benefits of enrichments are, common enrichments for each species, and how to audit the provisions of enrichments.

October 26 –   What’s New in the World of Livestock Transportation?

An overview of what is new with animal transportation welfare considerations including the latest research, new technology, and regulatory requirements.

About PAACO

PAACO was developed in 2004 in response to growing use of animal welfare audit expectations by the retail and food service sectors. This created the need for training, certification, and continuing education. When created, PAACO’s vision was to be the trusted authority on animal welfare auditing providing consistency and science-based training of auditors as well as rigorous, science-based audit standards.

Certification processes were created for:

1. Audits to ensure certified animal welfare tools are rigorous programs committed to continuous improvement.
2. Auditors so they receive comprehensive training about animal welfare and how to audit as the first step toward their certification process.

This has led many companies to require that auditors carry the PAACO Certification credential when performing animal welfare audits. Once certified, PAACO auditors must complete annual requirements for CE to achieve recertification. PAACO has a list of approved, but not all inclusive, CE events on its website.

PAACO has established itself as the premier organization for both training certified auditors and certifying audits. Their efforts continue to evolve to meet changing demands of consumers, processors, and producers while adapting to use the best delivery methods available for their work.