September 2011 - Australian Veterinary Association

cow’s own growth hormone. It is administered to dairy
cows to boost their milk yield despite that fact that yields
are already so high that they have a detrimental impact
on welfare. The EU’s prohibition is based on a report by
the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal
Welfare which concluded that “BST administration
causes substantially ... poorer welfare because of increased
foot disorders, mastitis, reproductive disorders
and other production-related diseases.”
Economic considerations
A key constraint to the EU – or other countries – introducing
higher welfare standards is the cost of doing so.
There is a perception that improved welfare entails substantially
increased costs for farmers and much higher
food prices for consumers. In some cases this will be
so. However, analysis of industry data shows that in certain
cases higher welfare farming adds little to farm level
production costs. For example, a free range egg costs
just over 2 UK pence – 3 Australian cents − more to produce
than a battery egg and housing sows in groups
rather than stalls adds just 1-2 eurocents – at most 3
Australian cents - to the cost of producing 1 kg of pork.
Moreover, improved welfare can lead to economic benefits.
In better welfare systems, animals will tend to be
healthier. This can lead to savings in terms of reduced
expenditure on veterinary medicines and lower mortality
rates. The provision of straw and/or additional space for
finishing pigs can result in better feed conversion ratios
and improved growth rates.
We need to challenge the notion that enhanced welfare
is always economically burdensome. Research is
needed to identify win-win scenarios where better welfare
can also produce economic benefits.
World Trade Organisation
Another major constraint is fear of the World Trade Organisation
(WTO). The common view is that WTO member
countries cannot restrict imports on animal welfare
grounds. Hence the fear that any increase in EU welfare
standards makes its farmers vulnerable to lower welfare
and thus cheaper imports from outside Europe. It is this
concern that led to the Broilers Directive being unambitious
and that fuelled the attempts – happily unsuccessful
– to delay the ban on battery cages.
In fact this fear is not necessarily borne out by recent
WTO case law. Article 3 provides that imported products
must be afforded treatment no less favourable than
“like” domestic products. The conventional wisdom is
that in determining whether two products are not “like”
one another – and so capable of being accorded different
treatment – no account may be taken of the way in
which they have been produced. From this viewpoint
battery eggs and free range eggs are “like” products.
However, WTO case law has emphasised that, in assessing
“likeness”, it is important to consider consumers’
tastes and habits, their perceptions and behaviour. If
consumers view two products as different products because
of the way in which they have been produced, the
WTO may be prepared to accept that they are not “like”
products. And that would mean that it would be permissible
for one product − that which has been produced
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inhumanely – to be treated less favourably than a humanely
produced version of the product.
Moreover, even where a measure is found to be inconsistent
with the WTO rules it may be possible to justify it
under the Article XX Exceptions. These permit measures
to be taken that are necessary to protect, inter alia,
public morals and animal health. WTO case law used to
interpret these exceptions very restrictively but more recently
it has been giving a wider scope to the exceptions.
Clearly the WTO continues to place tough restrictions on
trade-related measures but it has nonetheless been accepting
the need to find a proper balance between trade
liberalisation and other legitimate public policy considerations.
The EU has to a degree recognised this and,
accordingly its new Regulation on slaughter, requires
imported meat to be derived from animals that have
been slaughtered to welfare standards equivalent to
those of the EU.
The inefficiencies of industrial livestock production
We are often told that industrial livestock production is
necessary to feed the growing world population. That it
is super-efficient. But is it? Industrial production is dependent
on feeding substantial quantities of cereals and
soy to animals. Research shows that the nutritional
value consumed by animals in eating a given quantity of
cereals is much greater than that delivered for humans
by the resultant meat. Using cereals and soy as animal
feed is a wasteful use not just of these crops but of the
scarce land, water and fossil fuel energy used to grow
them.
Through its dependence on feeding grain to animals,
industrial livestock production is responsible for pollution.
Much of the synthetic nitrogen fertiliser used to grow
feed crops for animals and the nitrogen in concentrate
animal feed is not absorbed by the crops and animals
and runs off to pollute water and aquatic ecosystems. A
new UN report states that “Intensive livestock production
is probably the largest sector-specific source of water
pollution”.
The drive to grow more animal feed has been a major
factor in the intensification of crop production which is
leading to erosion of biodiversity. Huge swathes of biodiversity-rich
tropical rainforest and savannah are being
cleared in South America to grow soy to feed industrially
produced livestock. This releases huge amounts of
stored carbon into the atmosphere, thereby contributing
to climate change.
The high levels of meat consumption that have been
made possible by industrial production are having an
adverse impact on human health. Some meat and dairy
products can be high in saturated fat; which is linked
with obesity and an increased risk of heart disease and
certain cancers. The recent UN report states that “the
number of undernourished people worldwide (1 billion) is
matched by the number of those who are overfed and
obese”.
These various damaging impacts are referred to as
“negative externalities”. These represent a market fail-