State-by-State Welfare Legislation Not Solution

Commentary by Candace Croney*

Is state-by-state legislation of farm animal welfare good for animals? Is it even good for people?

It has been suggested that recent legislation such as Proposition 2 in California will promote farm animal well-being simply by mandating greater freedom of movement for animals. There are merits to this argument. However, science and common sense suggest that there may be problems as well. Some have indicated that animal welfare may instead be worsened.

For instance, some California egg producers who want to stay in business may try alternative practices they do not fully understand (understanding and implementing new management practices can be a major limiting constraint on animal welfare) and actually may worsen laying hen welfare.

It is also foreseeable that egg producers in other states will try to capitalize on gaps in the California egg market left by those who cannot meet the new requirements. Some may try to increase hen production using practices that are as problematic as battery caging from a welfare standpoint. This would not bode well for overall hen welfare.

From a human perspective, the current legislative approach is problematic.

Consumers increasingly indicate their desire for locally produced food that supports their own communities. Local production, theoretically, should also make food more affordable since transport distances should be less, but if California imports more eggs and pork from other states to meet market demands, the consumer may lose on these fronts.

A warning bell should be resonating. Legislating farm animal welfare on a state-by-state basis makes little sense because of its implications for food production. We are likely to recreate the European Union's problems wherein some member nations are now importing more animal products - ironically, from countries with lower welfare standards - to make up for demand and for food access via affordable prices. This is not a sustainable practice, especially in the U.S.

There are only two directions we can go from here: either state-by-state legislation stops altogether, which is unlikely, or we go to federally mandated welfare legislation, which will bring its own problems. Make no mistake, recent ballot legislation moves are setting the stage for federal legislation.

Animal agriculture's leaders must stop waiting to see what happens next and respond quickly and appropriately. The problem of farm animal welfare is here to stay, and the current attempts to address it with legislation may bring unforeseen consequences along the lines of those encountered following the horse slaughter ban.

However, we cannot expect people with genuine concerns to go away or to give up their constitutional rights to use the legal system to protect their own interests and those about whom they care, even if those individuals are animals destined for the food chain.

The only option is to properly address welfare concerns. The animal industries must define their own welfare problems rather than continuing to allow others to do so. Industry stakeholders must develop a plan to address these problems, along with a reasonable time frame to do so, and institute a process of self-regulation that can be externally validated.

Like it or not, consumer concerns must be incorporated, for if consumers ultimately reject our efforts, we will have no market.

What other feasible alternative exists? Insisting that animal agriculture should operate as it pleases relative to animal well-being and have immunity from public scrutiny is pointless. Public relations messaging without a demonstrable, effective effort to improve farm animals' quality of life will certainly not solve the problem. This is not to say that public relations has no merits.

All across the U.S., people work incredibly hard to put food on the table for others who barely acknowledge, much less appreciate, their efforts, and their stories are not told often, well or accurately. Of course, we need to highlight this good work, but we need to market ourselves with integrity, and we fail too often in this regard.

This brings us back to the original point about animal welfare legislation. Why are people overwhelmingly supporting statewide animal welfare ballot initiatives?

According to common rhetoric, "Those darned city people just need to be educated!" There are serious logical flaws with that.

First, far more people than we realize do have some sense of how animal products are made. If nothing else, the average person does know that something dies in order for it to be eaten as food. People may choose to ignore that inconvenient truth in order to enjoy meals without guilt, but to attribute that level of ignorance to people is plain insulting.

Also, if people already feel guilty about animals dying so they can eat, questions about animal quality of life probably worsen their discomfort. One way to ease that guilt is to vote for legislation that seems to improve animal well-being.

Another problem is that we can call our animal housing systems anything we like. We can scientifically explain that they "meet animals' physical and physiological needs and that we produce cheap, safe food" until the proverbial cows come home, but at the end of the day, if you show a consumer who cares about animals an image of a hen or a sow in a standard cage, crate or stall, the consumer more likely than not sees an animal living in a "box." Many people inherently dislike that concept. To some, it just doesn't "seem right." Can we dispatch this unarticulated concern with science? It's doubtful.

Couple that with ballot wording that essentially requests that "animals should be able to stand up, lie down and turn around comfortably," and we've got quite the messaging predicament on our hands. How do we counter such a seemingly reasonable, modest request while maintaining that we care about animals?

We then worsen the situation when we portray animal production with imagery that seems divorced from reality. A disproportionate number of our pictures show pristine farm animals on sunny days out on pasture with equally spotless farmers hugging the animals! That is, of course, when we're not employing similarly disingenuous (though highly entertaining) anthropomorphic images of talking farm animals in environments that are ... rare.

So, we mislead consumers while complaining about activist misinformation on animal production and then wonder why we have a snowballing problem.

We can do better. Animal agriculture needs to answer one very simple question: What is unacceptable to do to farm animals?

If we can collectively answer this, we have the beginning of an ethical framework for animal production. If we can come to a consensus on that question, then we can use science to refine our systems so they better uphold those values, and science can be employed to truthfully explain to people not just why certain "unpalatable" things inevitably happen to farm animals but what we do to minimize or alleviate animal suffering.

Some people will still not be satisfied, but at least we'll have demonstrated respect for our consumers, a better understanding of the issues and that we indeed have an ethic of care, as applied ethicists have long been advocating. We'll also have something more tangible to showcase that resonates with today's public. It might even be enough to reduce the impetus to legislate our practices.

*Candace Croney is associate professor of animal behavior/bioethics in the department of veterinary preventive medicine at Ohio State University in Columbus.

From the same Feedstuffs series:

What ag must understand, by Dr. Bernard Rollin, Feedstuffs, issue 16, vol. 81, Apr. 20, 2009.

To underestimate farmers, ranchers is a serious mistake, by Steve Kopperud, Feedstuffs, issue 16, vol. 81, Apr. 20, 2009.

Back to Farming / Management / Home