The American Humane Association's American Humane Certified program, a voluntary, fee-based service that certifies producers' farm animals are raised to meet the association’s standards, has signed an agreement with video surveillance and security company HS3 Technologies Inc.
The video monitoring service will become a standard component of the American Humane Certified compliance program, incorporating more than 15,000 locations in North America. Qualified producers who successfully complete the American Humane assessment are entitled to use the American Humane Certified logo on their retail packaging.
Beta testing will begin this fall in five production and transportation facilities for chickens (broiler and layer farms), swine and cattle (veal and dairy). According to the association, the selected producers distribute nationally and internationally, and represent some of the largest animal protein producers in the world.
The surveillance systems, which monitor conditions and events such as temperature, air flow, feeding schedules, personnel entrances/exits and animal mobility 1) trigger alarms when abnormalities occur, and 2) can be viewed (with a password) in real time from any computer with an internet connection.
