Food Production and Animal Welfare Legislation in Australia: Failing Both Animals and the Environment

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore how animals in Australia are raised and processed domestically for food and exported internationally. We trace the rise of corporate domination of farm animal production in Australia as a response to increasing domestic and international demand for meat products and describe the systematic exclusion of State and Territory Animal Welfare Acts to farm animals intended to be processed for food. In doing so, we illustrate the complexity of Australia’s regulatory framework governing Australian farm animals by taking the poultry industry (chicken meat and eggs) as our case study. We then explore Australia’s highly controversial live animal export industry; its highly visible failures and more recent attempts by the Australian government to introduce traceability and accountability into the live export supply chain. We then discuss the major environmental externalities associated with intensive farm animal operations; identifying the energy inefficiencies associated with raising and processing animals for human consumption. We note the contribution of intensive animal farming to atmospheric CO2 emissions as well as the water degradation caused by waste matter runoff. In response to these environmental externalities, we propose the use of artificial photosynthetic technology as a means of transforming the farm animal industry from one of net energy and resource taker to one approaching energy and waste neutrality. We conclude by examining four major problems with the troubled relationship between farm animals and the Australian domestic food and live export industries. The chapter is purposefully written for the well informed reader, interested in farm animal welfare in the different countries of the world, but who is not necessarily informed about the industry and regulatory framework in Australia. Accordingly, the chapter is written in a way that is not overly-technical, but nevertheless leads the reader through the sometimes complex and contradictory nature of farm animal regulation in Australia.