Abstract
The nutrition of food animals has a major influence on their welfare. A direct link between feed provision and welfare is evident for farm animals, with undernourished animals demonstrated to have poor welfare. Currently, animal production systems are poised at a crossroads. Increased demand for animal products is encouraging the establishment of more intensive production units, such as battery cages for chickens or feedlots for beef cattle, which have adverse effects on animal welfare. However, increasing concern about intensive livestock production, including for their welfare, may reduce demand for products from these systems and encourage production of human food from plant material for an expanding human population. A key to this transition is the greater resource use efficiency of plant-based food for humans, compared with livestock production. The outcome will depend on governments’ willingness to recognize adverse human and animal welfare implications of concentrating animal production into intensive units. Regulatory control will require more stringent systems of monitoring and controlling animal welfare than those currently available. A market-led trade in animal products will only sometimes produce the good welfare outcomes required by the public, and intervention may be required to regulate animal welfare and human food supply, as basic rights for those concerned.
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