FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The Center for Food Animal Wellbeing will host its fifth annual symposium Aug. 6 on current issues and advances in food animal wellbeing. The center is a unit of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.

The one-day symposium will be in the Leland Tollet Auditorium inside the John W. Tyson Poultry Science Building on the University of Arkansas campus. Registration is $25.

"This year we have an incredible roster of speakers covering animal welfare topics and related issues of current interest to those of us in animal agriculture," said Yvonne Vizzier Thaxton, director for the Center for Food Animal Wellbeing.

Speakers include Paul McKellips, author, director and producer; Paul Siegel, Virginia Tech University distinguished professor emeritus of animal and poultry science; Carla Warding, Faces of Farming and Ranching winner for U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance; Lucy Anthernill, U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service humane handling enforcement coordinator; Colin Scanes, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, professor of animal physiology and nutrition; Kate Barger, Cobb-Vantress, Inc., director of animal welfare; Ruth Woiwode, University of Arkansas post-doctoral fellow; Karen Christensen, University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture associate professor and extension specialist, and Rusty Rumley, senior staff attorney at the Division of Agriculture's National Agricultural Law Center.

The goal for the Center for Food Animal Wellbeing is to improve animal health, animal handling, food safety and productivity by developing and defining objective measurements of wellbeing including measures of behavior, stress physiology, neurophysiology, immunology, microbiology and production efficiency.

Registration information and the program are online at foodanimalwellbeing.uark.edu/AnnualSymposium.