Abstract
Simple SummaryIn all European countries, farmers keeping animals must comply with European and national animal welfare legislation. Each government has a responsibility to make sure that the legislation is complied with by the farmers. However, during the last decades it has become increasingly common that private organisations, such as the industry, farmers’ organisations, or animal welfare organisations, develop additional animal welfare regulations (‘private standards’) that the farmers also need to comply with. These private standards have the opportunity to improve animal welfare above the legislative level, however, in our study we have shown that this is not always the case and that all of these different private standards, in addition to the legislation, makes it difficult to get an overview of the animal welfare regulation and control arena. For the sake of the farmers, the animal welfare inspectors, the consumers, and the animals we conclude that it is important that policymakers consider this arena as a whole and not their own regulation as a single phenomenon.The current shift moves the governance of animal welfare away from the government towards the private market and the consumers. We have studied the intentions, content, and on-farm inspection results from different sets of animal welfare legislation and private standards with an aim to highlight the most important opportunities and risks identified in relation to the trend of increasingly relying on private standards for safeguarding or improving farm animal welfare. Our results show that different focuses, intentions, animal welfare requirements, inspection methods (i.e., methods for measuring and evaluating the compliance with a regulation), and inspection results, together with the use of vague wordings and a drive towards more flexible regulations does certainly not facilitate the interpretation and implementation of animal welfare regulations, especially not in relation to each other. Since farmers today often have to comply with several animal welfare regulations, including private standards, it is important to stress that a given regulation should never be seen as a single, stand-alone phenomenon, and the policymakers must hence consider the bigger picture, and apply the standards in relation to other existing regulations. This is especially relevant in relation to the legislation, a level that a private standard can never ignore.
Highlights
Many European countries have long histories of animal welfare legislation, with a focus on preventing cruelty and poor animal welfare by stipulating a minimum level of housing and management
The paper is based on discussions emanating from our project Mind the Gaps! From Intentions to Practice in Animal Welfare Legislation and Private Standards [13], and on results from other research groups and studies, such as those by More and co-workers [3], who identified a need for greater scrutiny of private standards, and Main and co-workers [14], who have presented a framework for developing private standards with an aim to improve animal welfare
We argue together with Wahlberg [29] that from an animal welfare point of view, it is important that flexible requirements are interpreted from an animal perspective, in accordance with the aim of the animal welfare legislation, or else this flexibility may lead to arbitrariness and de facto lead to poorer animal welfare outcomes
Summary
Many European countries have long histories of animal welfare legislation, with a focus on preventing cruelty and poor animal welfare by stipulating a minimum level of housing and management. Private standards may comprise input requirements similar to those that are commonly seen in the legislation, but often put considerable emphasis on animal-based output variables These private animal welfare standards have been initiated by different stakeholders in the food chain, including the processing industry (slaughterhouses and dairy plants), primary producers’ organisations (farmers’ organisations, organic farming organisations), retailer chains, and various other governmental and non-governmental organisations [2,8]. Bock and van Huik [10] reported that the main incentive for farmers to participate in any voluntary standard was to get better payment for their products and improved access to the market. They concluded that farmers affiliated to an organic standard or to a specific animal welfare-focused standard were mainly motivated by ethical concerns and the possibility of improving animal welfare
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