Elsevier

Food Policy

Volume 23, Issues 3–4, November 1998, Pages 305-323
Food Policy

European agricultural policy and farm animal welfare

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0306-9192(98)00036-0Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper examines a neglected aspect of food policy: the impact of agricultural policy on farm animal welfare. Defining farm animal welfare is difficult but some general standards are now widely accepted and the determinants of these are increasingly seen as being tied up with farm structural and enterprise characteristics. In Europe both of these are heavily influenced by the Common Agricultural Policy. The influence of the CAP on farm animal welfare is explored through examination of two important sectors — dairying and pigs. In both cases it is concluded that the CAP, either directly or indirectly, has encouraged the structural changes in these sectors that account for a deteriorating record of farm animal welfare. However, it is conceded that market and technological factors are also of considerable importance. More research is required to isolate policy influences. In the meantime the reform of the CAP heralded by Agenda 2000 provides an opportunity to ensure that welfare is more centrally recognised within the CAP.

Introduction

Farm animal welfare has become a major policy issue in the EU in recent years. In the United Kingdom, where popular political concern for animal issues is, arguably, the most powerfully expressed in Europe, protests against live export of sheep and veal calves have made headline news. Popular concern is expressed in consumer pressure too, evidenced, for example, by the growing demand for free-range animal products. This is matched by an expanding retail trade in scharrel vlees (free-range meat) in the Netherlands, home to some of the most intensive pig production in Europe, and similar trends in other northern European states. In the UK, the milk retailer, Unigate, has introduced a Superior Stockmanship bonus whereby farmers can receive bonuses for complying with high standards of animal welfare (Winter et al., 1997). In Austria, over 7% of the farmed area is now farmed organically, partly in response to farm animal welfare concerns.

Legislation has been one of the main responses to the growing concern. A protocol to the Treaty of Rome (the founding treaty for the European Economic Community) now commits member states to paying full regard to animal welfare when formulating and implementing policies in agriculture, transport, internal markets and research priorities. A considerable body of European and national legislation covers animal welfare issues (Eurogroup, 1995)1.

There are many parallels between the growth of animal welfare consciousness and the rising tide of concern for the natural environment. Indeed, given that many commentators agree that low intensity farming is essential to biological conservation in the European countryside (Bignal and McCracken, 1996) and that low intensity farming is highly desirable for improving farm animal welfare, there would seem to be an important synergy between these two concerns. However, they have been addressed together rarely and the two policy sectors have tended to exist in relative isolation. Thus animal welfarists, as political lobbyists, have tended to concentrate their attentions on the need for direct regulations and controls. By contrast, many environmental campaigners have been loath to embrace direct regulation, given the political might of the agricultural lobby, and instead have sought to modify agricultural policy so that farmers are encouraged (rather than directed) to improve their standards of environmental management (Winter, 1996). In particular, within Europe, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has become the battleground for a continuing, and highly sophisticated debate, on how agricultural policy might be modified so as to achieve environmental objectives. A considerable research effort has been extended in this area, with a growing volume of literature exploring the links between the CAP and environmental management covering both policy developments and empirical relationships (Brouwer and van Berkum, 1996; Potter, 1996; Whitby, 1996; Winter and Gaskell, 1998).

Given these developments, it is somewhat surprising that virtually no attention has been given to examining the relationship between farm animal welfare and the CAP. Prior to the publication of the report from which this paper is drawn (Winter et al., 1997) none of the animal welfare campaigning organisations appear to have considered the issue despite a long history of pressing for legislative changes. Subsequently the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals has also published a report on the CAP (Bowles, 1998). There appear to be no research-based publications available on the interaction between agricultural policy and animal welfare standards. This paper offers a partial remedy to this situation by setting out some of the issues and making some tentative suggestions on how CAP policies influence standards of farm animal welfare. The attempt is inevitably tentative because of the paucity of empirical research available. In the absence of primary data, we have largely drawn inferences from existing published information on the CAP and its impacts on agricultural structures and the environment. It has to be said that, even in these instances, the relationship between CAP and farming practices remains imperfectly understood. Inevitably, therefore, the main function of this paper is to outline a research agenda, an agenda which requires a dialogue between animal welfare experts and policy experts. As food and agricultural policy increasingly merge, so this dialogue becomes more important. This paper suggests that while some influences of the CAP on enterprise and farm characteristics can be discerned, the main impact of the Policy has been via its effects on broad aspects of agricultural structure, such as farm size and enterprise mix. The CAP is one influence among many on these factors, and hence on the welfare of farm animals. Our analysis seeks to indicate the extent of the CAP's past and potential influence, and, by implication, the way it may be modified to improve farm animal welfare.

Such an approach presupposes that farm animal welfare is defined, and that its determinants are understood. There are many different definitions of animal welfare. These arise partly from a diversity of moral philosophies and beliefs pertaining to animals and to the environment in general. Definitions may also reflect the measures chosen to assess animal welfare and the discipline of the measurer (e.g. ethologists emphasise behaviour, veterinary scientists focus on disease). Facts or convictions about what determines animal welfare provide a further, though derived, perspective, related not so much to the animals' experience, but to the opportunities and constraints presented by their environment and conditions.

This plurality of definitions presents considerable difficulties for those researching the natural science of animal welfare (Stafleu et al., 1996). For the less precise science of policy analysis, however, this presents less of a problem, at least at this stage of policy agenda setting. While philosophy- or science-based definitions may differ radically, they often translate into similar practical criteria, with the result that there is a fairly general consensus as to the main determinants of the welfare of farm animals. Thus we are content broadly to work within such a consensus and base our policy analysis and agenda setting around determinant-based definitions of farm animal welfare. Such an approach, while underpinned by both philosophy and science, avoids arid definitional debate and allows some amalgamation of different definitional approaches.

Definitions based on determinants are usually expressed as `charters', `codes' or `standards', relating to the basic characteristics of farm animal production systems. As such, they provide a first stage in linking the experience of animals on farms to the CAP. The basis of their derivation is in one sense irrelevant (because they are taken to represent a consensus view), but they usually reflect both moral convictions (i.e. regarding animal rights and human responsibility) and scientific research (i.e. the measurement of factors influencing animal welfare). And they provide a means of both promoting good welfare and/or evaluating the welfare of animals in particular situations.

Determinant-based definitions include the welfare criteria employed by producers of welfare-friendly products, (e.g. Guy, 1991), policy statements by animal welfare advocacy groups (e.g. CIWF, 1996; WSPA, 1994), and government sponsored codes for the welfare of livestock (e.g. MAFF, 1983, MAFF, 1987, MAFF, 1989). In the UK, the Farm Animal Welfare Council's `five freedoms' (Fig. 1) has gained particular prominence, and perhaps best represents the consensus referred to above. While the complexities of defining farm animal welfare and the limitations of any one definitional system are recognised, the five freedoms (with reference to related determinant-based definitions) is considered an adequate and appropriate working basis for the study of policy in this paper.

The factors implied in the Five Freedoms (and welfare charters) are affected directly by animal husbandry and enterprise characteristics, and in turn by farm structure, the structure of agriculture, and a range of other factors (including the CAP) as shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 3Fig. 4 list, for production and transport respectively, key determinants of farm animal welfare and associated `welfare ideals'. Factors related to animal husbandry and enterprise characteristics are derived from the Five Freedoms and other welfare charters. Our claim is not that the determinants listed in the figures necessarily represent a scientific consensus on empirical cause and effect relations but that they represent widely held views and beliefs by those active in campaigning and policy making in this field.

Of particular significance is the structure of agriculture. Structural change in European agriculture has been considerable in the decades since 1945 (Bowler, 1985). Concentration, regionalisation, specialisation, mechanisation, intensification and adoption of new technologies have resulted in: fewer mixed farms; larger farms and larger livestock units, herds and flocks; fewer stockmen:livestock ratios; much greater numbers of housed livestock, with higher in-building stocking densities and less or no access to range; greater use of growth promoters, and high-energy and/or high protein diets; development of high-yielding breeds; longer transport distances; and fewer, but larger, abattoirs. As a result livestock productivity has increased considerably while the value per individual animal (unit value) has decreased.

Improving productivity, or production efficiency, in terms of output per unit of capital, labour or land, has, until recently, been the prime goal of agricultural R&D, and a major aim of agricultural policy. Technologies effecting improvements in productivity have increased enterprise net profitability and reduced costs of food to consumers. Up to a certain level, improvements in productivity may result in improvements in farm animal welfare. Adequate feeding, protection and warmth, the treatment of disease and measures to reduce mortality of young animals, for example, serve both productivity and welfare. Beyond that point, however, there is an increasingly negative relationship between the two (Baxter, 1991). Generally, though not universally, increases in the efficiency of animal production in the EU over the last few decades have resulted in a decline in welfare. Examples of impacts on welfare of increases in animal production efficiency in terms of whole enterprises and individual animals are shown in Fig. 5Fig. 6, respectively.

Within most EU farming systems, welfare problems are more likely among faster-growing, higher-yielding breeds and individuals than slower-growing and lower-yielding animals. Rapid muscle growth is often out of proportion to the rate of growth of other organs, notably the skeleton and the cardio-vascular system. For example, breeding of broiler chickens for rapid growth and excessive development of breast muscle has created a range of disorders of the leg bones, joints and skin, such that Webster (1994)concluded that `approximately one quarter of the heavy strains of broiler chicken and turkey are in chronic pain for approximately one third of their lives'. Metabolic disorders in dairy cows, such as ketosis, mastitis and lameness, show some association with high milk yield. Similarly `selection for fast and efficient muscle growth in broiler chickens, pigs and beef cattle has resulted in a substantial increase in leg problems, because the leg structure does not develop as fast as the muscles' (Broom, 1995).

Related to productivity increases, is an observable approximated correlation between the welfare of an animal and its unit value, arising from the level of care and husbandry received by the animal, and the scale of the enterprise of the unit in which it is produced. In other words, the more an individual animal is worth, the better it is treated. For example, for pigs and poultry, the increasingly intensive management systems that effected a lowering of production costs and prices of their meat to the consumer have also resulted in a decline in these animals' welfare. Conversely, as is evident from `free-range' and `welfare-friendly' animal products, improving welfare is likely to necessitate increasing prices, while the uptake of such products will reflect, at least in part, the general level of prosperity of consumers.

There are many welfare problems associated with long distance transport of live animals. To date, these have largely been dealt with by regulations covering transport conditions, but this may be dealing with the symptom of the problem rather than the cause. Longer-distance transport of live animals is likely to result from a reduction in the number of abattoirs, or may be promoted by particular policies.

Hence, increases in productivity, reduction in animal unit value and greater transportation of live animals, the means by which they have been achieved and the implied changes in animal husbandry and enterprise characteristics, have, in general, resulted in a decline in the welfare of farm animals in many EU states. Thus, to the extent that the CAP encourages greater specialisation, concentration and intensification of animal production and transport of live animals, it can be seen as contributing towards declining standards of farm animal welfare.

Section snippets

Trends in European agriculture: the CAP and farm animal welfare

That the trends in European agriculture have been towards the kind of specialised, concentrated and intensive agriculture which inhibits farm animal welfare, is easily established. European agriculture, particularly in the north, but increasingly in the south too, has been transformed during the past 50 years from a relatively backward and highly labour-intensive sector of the economy to one of increasing technical sophistication (Gardner, 1996). The contribution of traditional small peasant

The 1992 CAP reform

In 1992, the CAP was fundamentally reformed. These reforms did not directly affect either the dairy or pig sectors but, in the long run, the implications of the reform for both sectors could be dramatic. The main aim of the reform was to reduce CAP-induced market distortions by altering the whole basis of CAP support payments by decoupling them from production. In response to the GATT agreement, the reforms heralded a gradual adjustment of farm gate prices for heavily supported commodities,

Can the CAP be reformed to benefit farm animal welfare?

The publication by the European Commission of Agenda 2000 in July 1997 provides the clearest indication yet of the likely pattern of CAP reform into the next millennium. Agenda 2000 sets out policy objectives for the further reform of CAP which may be summarised as follows:

  • improvement of the competitiveness of EU agriculture on both domestic and external markets;

  • continuing emphasis on food safety and food quality, including environmental friendliness of production methods;

  • ensuring a fair

Conclusions

Whilst we feel we have established that there is a relationship between policy and the conditions for good animal welfare, it is not possible at this stage to quantify this relationship and harder still to assess the relative weight of the influence of CAP as against other influences such as market trends and technological developments. Nor, as the comparison between the dairy and pig sectors illustrates, is it at all clear what would have happened to these sectors in the absence of policy

Unlinked reference

Broom, 1994Dated changed in text to 1993.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Compassion in World Farming Trust and the World Society for the Protection of Animals for commissioning and funding this research and for the guidance offered by Philip Lymbrey (CIWF) and Carol MacKenna (WSPA). We have also benefited from comments during the research by Jim Dixon and Vicki Swales of the UK's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Ruth Harrison, Vicki Hird of SAFE Alliance and Patrick Holden of the UK Soil Association. The authors alone are responsible

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