Climate Change and Food Security: setting the track for the ... - FAO

Best regards
Gerhard Flachowsky
Prof. Dr. G. Flachowsky
Institute of Animal Nutrition
Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute (FLI)
Federal Research Institute for Animal Heallth
Germany
61. Geoff Evans, Humane Society International, USA
Dear members of the Steering Committee of the HLPE,
Humane Society International (HSI) applauds HPLE’s efforts to study the relationship between
climate change and food security, specifically the opportunities and challenges various climate
change mitigation and adaptation policies pose to food security and nutritional health. Further,
we appreciate the opportunity to provide input to this important work during your public
comment period.
While HSI appreciates the overall breadth of the scoping paper, the paper omits consideration of
the welfare of animals raised for food. The approximately 67.5 billion animals raised for food
annually both impact and are impacted by climate change, and climate change policies. Support
for high-welfare farming practices—as opposed to low-welfare intensive confinement systems—
is more likely to support food security, small-holder farmers (including women farmers), rural
development, and environmental sustainability.
Surveys of public opinion clearly indicate that consumers worldwide care for the welfare of
animals raised for food. Climate change policies must consider effects on farm animal welfare.
HSI requests the HLPE to take into account the climate change and policy impacts on the
welfare of animals raised for food, and recommend policy solutions that support highanimal-welfare
farming systems.
With specific regard to the scoping paper, section 1(a) should, in its evaluation of climate change
impacts on food security, include an evaluation of climate change’s impacts on farm animal
welfare, such as heat-stress-related death. Section 1(c)’s evaluation of the limits of agricultural
resources should account for the relative inefficiency of producing animal products, including
impact on global grain resources. Worldwide, more than 97% of soymeal and over 60% of barley
and corn go to feed farm animals. Section 4(b)’s analysis of agricultural mitigation options
should also evaluate these options for their impacts on animal welfare, which dovetails into
section 4(d)’s multi-objective policy approach to mitigation. Some of the proposed mitigation
options in animal agriculture have the potential to lead to wide-scale, negative welfare impacts.
For example, increasing production efficiency in farm animals has led to some of the worst
animal welfare effects. And providing financial subsidies to large-scale anaerobic digesters
incentivizes operations that not only severely compromise animal welfare, but harm the
environment and food security, as well. Small-scale biodigesters, however, should be pursued.
Thus, evaluating the animal-welfare impacts of agricultural mitigation options would feed
directly into a multi-objective policy approach to mitigation. Section 5 should take the foregoing
welfare considerations in the aggregate and promote high-welfare systems, which are more
wont to simultaneously support food security, the environment, and economic development
goals.
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Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition
http://km.fao.org/fsn
44