Profiting from Animal Welfare: an Animal-based Perspective

The animal welfare debate has been developing in the UK since the 18 century and for much of that time the emphasis has been on the use of legislation to protect animals. More recently in farm animals there has been a focus on using market-led approaches to improve animal welfare. In this paper we argue that there is a strong case for examining more closely supply-side solutions to improving animal welfare, in effect asking how much animal welfare can farmers’ afford to deliver. The answer appears to be more than some might think. Using a range of examples we illustrate that improving animal welfare need not penalise business returns and indeed may increase profits. A greater focus on delivering improved animal welfare within a competitive livestock industry would allow farmers to gain the initiative in the animal welfare debate. To realise this requires interdisciplinary research combining economic analysis with high quality scientific information on the animals’ welfare combined with effective knowledge exchange that positively influences farmer behaviour.