It has been more than three years since the European Commission presented the Farm to Fork Strategy in the framework of its flagship European Green Deal. The much-lauded commitment to revise and expand the scope of the EU’s animal welfare legislation was integral to the Commission’s plan to achieve a fair, healthy and environmentally-friendly food system.
True enough, the world looks very different since President von der Leyen had her ‘man on the moon moment’. No-one could have predicted that a new coronavirus would rip through the fabric of global society, nor that Russia would invade Ukraine with all of its far-reaching consequences.
Yet the need, which von der Leyen identified, to “reconcile the economy with our planet, to reconcile the way we produce and consume with our planet” has not changed. Indeed, it is more urgent than ever to, among other things, achieve a more sustainable food system.
Improving the welfare of farm animals is fundamental to making our food system more sustainable. However, it looks increasingly likely the Von der Leyen Commission will sacrifice animal welfare on the altar of economy.
What many fail to realize is that poor animal welfare has far-reaching implications for human health, too.
The need to advance the welfare of animals is not just about reducing their suffering and improving their living conditions. What many fail to realize is that poor animal welfare has far-reaching implications for human health, too.
We have only just emerged from a devastating global pandemic and returned more or less to business as usual. Yet the threat of infectious zoonoses has not gone away, and intensive animal agriculture is a potential breeding ground for whatever pathogen will engender a future pandemic.
Over the past decades, small- and medium-sized farms have increasingly been supplanted by large, industrialized operations that confine large numbers of animals indoors. Keeping large groups of animals in densely-stocked facilities creates unique ecosystems that are a risk factor for the development of zoonotic pathogens. Moreover, larger farms with more animals have a greater potential virus load, should a farm become infected.
While high animal density within farms is a risk factor for the amplification of disease, the geographic concentration of farms in the same region is a risk for disease spread. Intensive production is often associated with large numbers of animals on a relatively small area of land, and tends to shift to regions where agriculture land is more available, growing fastest near densely settled areas and urbanizing environments.
Intensive animal agriculture is a potential breeding ground for whatever pathogen will engender a future pandemic.
What you end up with is a progressive increase in animal biomass over limited geographic areas. Intensive pig and poultry production in the Netherlands provides a really good illustration of this. It has the highest farm animal density in Europe with 3.4 ‘livestock units’ per hectare, primarily concentrated in the southern and central provinces, namely, Noord-Brabant, Limburg, Gelderland, Overijssel and Utrecht.
When a highly-infectious pathogen becomes established in one production site, it can then be transferred to neighboring operations and if biosecurity measures fail, or prove inadequate, then you have a serious problem. This generally results in widespread culling, including healthy animals who had the misfortune of living within a radius of the infected farm. Live animal transports, especially long distance, also exacerbate the whole problem and increase transmission risks further.
Right now, highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) is one of the zoonotic pathogens that is causing the greatest concern to virologists. In recent months, we have borne witness to the first instances of mammal-to-mammal transmission of bird flu on fur farms in Spain and Finland. The HPAI A (H5N1) virus has already been detected on 26 Finnish fur farms leading to the mass culling of around 250,000 foxes, raccoon dogs and mink. The question is when will this virus jump from animals confined to cages to the human population? Are we really prepared for an outbreak of the scale and deadliness that avian influenza could cause?
Eliminating the cruel and unnecessary practice of fur farming altogether is a simple step in reducing risks with regard to bird flu, but we also need to seriously improve the welfare of the billions of animals we keep for food, as well as ultimately reducing our reliance on foods of animal origin altogether.
Giving farm animals better living conditions, which properly meet their complex welfare needs, helps to reduce their stress, which means stronger immune systems and less susceptibility to disease. Improved animal welfare often goes hand-in-hand with better hygiene practices and animal husbandry, and reduced antibiotic use, all of which collectively contribute to better animal and human health.
Moreover, shifting to more plant-based diets would help to reduce animal population density and the transportation networks that move animals and diseases into new regions. It could also reduce the stocking density and number of animals confined in the remaining intensive systems, thereby permitting a higher level of welfare in cage and crate-free alternative housing.
Breaking the promise to improve animal welfare will not only be a slap in the face of EU citizens … but will also leave us vulnerable to pathogens.
In 2021, the Commission pledged to deliver legislative proposals to prohibit and phase out caged confinement for farm animals. This was in response to a European Citizens’ Initiative to ‘End the Cage Age’, which garnered nearly 1.4 million signatures.
Hiding behind the ‘complexity’ of the animal welfare issue, the problem of rising food costs and placating the electorate in rural areas, it looks like the Commission may renege on this commitment to give billions of food animals a life worth living.
President von der Leyen must consider that breaking the promise to improve animal welfare will not only be a slap in the face of EU citizens and participatory democracy, but will also continue to leave us vulnerable to pathogens that may go on to devastate our economy and profoundly impact human health. Does she really want that to be part of her legacy?
