Description
A variety of animal welfare issues affect the UK’s 900 million farmed animals, arising from legally permissible housing and husbandry practices. Alternative production methods can support improved animal welfare, and may be preferred by farmers who want to give their animals a higher standard of care, but any farming system needs to be sustainably funded. Potentially, public funding could support higher welfare farming, but the marketplace is commonly identified as the most likely (and swiftest) route by which the lives of farmed animals will be improved. The Farm Animal Welfare Committee (formerly Council), for example, has stated that “consumers ultimately dictate the standards of welfare to which livestock are raised.”
Individual consumers may seek higher welfare logos and assurances when shopping or dining out, and retailers may “choice edit” their food ranges to make higher welfare offerings their baseline (e.g. not selling eggs from caged hens). Individual consumer purchasing behaviour may serve as an important signal to retailers, prompting the latter.