World Animal Net: National and State/Regional Legislation

Does Present Legislation Help Animal Welfare?

Professor Donald M. Broom
Animal Welfare and Human-Animal Interactions Group
Department of Clinical Veterinary Medicine
University of Cambridge
Madingley Road
Cambridge CB3 0ES
United Kingdom

Extracts from Paper in press (2001) Proceedings of Workshop 5 "Sustainable Animal Production" Landbauforschung Völkenrode, Sonderheft 222, ISBN 3-933140-44-7 (paper given at Hannover Expo)

Abstract

Animal welfare is a factor which affects public acceptability of animal production systems and hence sustainability. The scientific assessment of animal welfare, including animal health, has developed rapidly in recent years. Public concern about the welfare of farm animals has also increased substantially. Legislation has an effect on animal welfare if adequately enforced. At present, the greatest effects on animal welfare are the standards set by purchasers of animal products, principally supermarkets and fast food chains. The actions of farmers and others involved in animal production also have major effects on animal welfare. These actions are affected by financial considerations but also by pressure from purchasers, legislation and the attitudes of family, friends, visitors, other farmers and the general public. Those who design and manufacture housing and equipment for farm animal management and those who breed animals for farm use can have substantial effects on animal welfare. Indeed, the consequences of breeding for high production efficiency have caused some of the most substantial of today's animal welfare problems. Legislation is needed in relation to animal breeding and some aspects of system manufacture. The World Trade Organisation should include poor welfare of animals as a criterion for legislation which allows refusal of imports.

Sustainability, welfare and health

There are several possible reasons why an animal production system might not be sustainable. It could be because it involves so much depletion of a resource that this will become unavailable to the system. It could be because a product of the system accumulates to a degree which prevents the functioning of the system. However, in each of these cases, and in the case of some other aspects of systems, the earliest effect which renders the system unsustainable is one which impinges upon the general public's values in a way which the members of the public find unacceptable. Where there is depletion of a resource or accumulation of a product, the level at which this is unacceptable, and hence the point at which the system is unsustainable, is usually considerably lower than that at which the production system itself fails. Unacceptability is often due to effects on other systems. One major reason why animal production systems may be regarded by the public as unacceptable and hence become unsustainable without some modification, is that the product adversely affects human health, whilst another reason is their effect on the welfare of animals which are used in the production system. There is a point at which the welfare of the animals is so poor that the majority of the public consider the system to be unacceptable. Hence animal welfare and public attitudes to it must be considered wherever the sustainability of an animal production system is evaluated.

The terms "health" and "welfare" overlap in that health is an important part of welfare. The welfare of an animal is its state as regards its attempts to cope with its environment (Broom, 1986). Hence welfare is a characteristic of an individual animal and includes extent of success in coping with all aspects of its environment, failure to cope which may lead to disease, injury and death, and extent of difficulty in coping. The mechanisms for trying to cope include behaviour, physiological systems, immunological systems, a range of feelings such as pain, fear and various forms of pleasure, etc. Health is that part of welfare which concerns coping with pathogens and pathology. Welfare varies on a scale from very good to very poor and can be assessed scientifically, an adequate range of measures being needed (Broom 1991, 1996, 1998, Fraser and Broom 1990, Broom and Johnson 1993). Health also varies from good to poor. Good health involves absence of pathological effects whilst good welfare involves absence of indications of poor welfare, including those of pathology and disease, and indications of contentment, pleasure and happiness. Animal welfare science has developed rapidly in recent years.

Both poor health and other aspects of poor welfare can have economic aspects. Farm animal disease can cause great economic problems and a few farm animal diseases pose a risk for human health. Poor welfare which does not involve poor health can result in reduced survival of young animals, failure to conceive or successfully give birth, impaired growth or impaired production of milk or eggs. Farm animal welfare is therefore a matter of public concern
(a) for its own sake, in that people consider that they have moral obligations to animals;
(b) because of effects on costs of food and other animal products;
(c) because of effects on human welfare.
The animal health component of welfare contributes to each of these. The very substantial effects of farm animal health on economics of production and the recent increase in concern about moral obligations to animals have been reasons why animal health has been thought of as a separate subject from animal welfare but it is logically and scientifically incorrect to speak of health as distinct from welfare.