As a concept the ‘Welfare of Farm Animals’ is easy to grasp. It means recognising that domestic animals are sentient creatures, treating them with respect by ensuring their well-being and comfort and by avoiding pain and distress. But it is difficult to move from the concept to practical decisions on how to manage them.
This book presents the findings of ‘Welfare Quality’, a large international 5 year (2004–2009) multi-disciplinary project funded by the European Union that brought together partners in universities and research institutes in many European countries, Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay. The aim was to assess all the issues from production to consumption and to promote the development of animal welfare. The researchers took as the basic question: ‘What is a good quality life for a farmed animal?’ The net was cast wide to collect data from the many stakeholders and beyond and included public interest groups, ethicists, sociologists, animal and human health specialists. Four areas were seen as fundamental: housing, feed. health and behaviour. The researchers made an important policy decision at the start; namely, to try to assess welfare from the animals' point of view. This is, of course, the ideal. But the inner experiences of animals remain largely unavailable. Attempts to document animal feelings and experiences and to codify them into meaningful statements for legislation, farm practice and enforcement contain a large element of anthropomorphism: namely what an average human might feel in the same circumstances. In view of the evident higher standards that define human expectations for a quality life, the boundaries of acceptable animal welfare in practice remain malleable. The authors recognize this difficulty and ask what alternative indirect measures can be used to indicate animal comfort. They seem to favour animal behaviour as a good indicator of welfare; for example, by asking if the confined animal can perform functions that would be normal in natural, non-restricted environments. However, these criteria are not completely satisfactory shown by the issue of reproduction since this natural function is deliberately excluded from the large-scale livestock unit designed to bring the animal to market without time or space for reproduction. Eating is another natural function of all animals and feed is provided in industrial livestock units. But these circumstances not only preclude the animal from selecting a wider range of feeds that is available in the more extensive systems but also provide feed which, while well balanced nutritionally, can only be viewed by humans as lacking variety. Do animals feel this lack also?
The authors also explore the utilitarian route of animal welfare which posits that high physiological performance, such as growth rate, feed conversion efficiency, high milk yield and good carcass quality indicate that the animal lives a contented life. While this attempt to assess welfare clearly has the merit of identifying poor and uncomfortable circumstances for the animal, the motivation of this approach is suspect as maximizing profit is the ultimate criteria. Stereotypic behaviours such as feather-pecking in birds and tail biting in pigs are clear indications of poor animal care; but some business interests in the past tried to prevent animals from doing such things rather than removing the cause of stereotypical behaviours. The EU has legislated against over-crowding that provokes such behaviours and has also forbidden, for example, de-beaking birds. Undoubtedly, it is easier to fix negative boundaries and define protocols for animal care at specific stages of life such as the transport and killing of animals than to define parameters that will ensure the well-being of animals in their daily lives.
The authors say that this project was the largest ever collaborative project in animal welfare science. They collected, documented and analysed an enormous wealth of new information from widespread stakeholders and other interested sources that provides a comprehensive and integrated set of issues considered relevant to animal welfare. They also examined how these issues should or could be measured. In this way the project makes an original contribution. But, inevitably the authors recognize that they have also raised new questions that remain unanswered and will thus fuel further research. The project clearly indicates that almost everyone has an expectation that animals kept for food should be treated well and also finds that people representing different sectors in modern society have definite and often conflicting views on how livestock should be managed. As may be expected, such wide consultations among stakeholders and interested parties brings together expectations based upon different economic, political, technological, social, ethical, religious and cultural factors. The authors tested their analyses of factors on juries to ensure they had adequately understood the issues.
The project increases awareness of the number and complexity of animal welfare issues. It also reveals the large amount of time and effort needed to complete an welfare assessment on an individual farm. The authors do not make any specific recommendations for legislation, but devote much time during the project to making the information available to interested groups. Extensive reference lists of quoted publications are given and the main body of data and important conclusions are available at a dedicated website: Animal Welfare Quality, http://ec.europa.eu/research/era/index_en.htm The book provides the reader with a brief but comprehensive review of current thinking on animal welfare and the difficulties in ensuring good practice in this age of industrialised livestock production.
