False alarm
While we continue to import such products, highlighting that they do not meet our existing welfare standards is an important step to increase consumer education.
But these proposed labeling improvements are not enough: While the public may know of some well-known examples of abhorrent agricultural practices that don’t meet our standards, perhaps the more important question is whether people know about agricultural practices that don’t meet our standards. do Does it meet our standards?
In the 1960s, British public accused animal farmers of prioritising efficiency over animal welfare, which led to efforts to improve standards, but it also led to efforts to “welfare-wash” the animal industry to mislead the public into believing it was serious about animal welfare and could be trusted.
Welfare washing is a strategic response to the public’s conflicting desire to consume large amounts of affordable animal foods without accepting the extreme welfare compromises necessary to mass-produce them.
We have long been mired in a misinformation crisis about what the UK is doing with its farm animals.
Breastfeeding
While the industry clearly has no incentive to share all the details of what goes on on farms, welfare experts and governments have also failed to tell the public what practices they are actually paying for.
This shortfall has been filled solely by animal rights groups, who, among other things, investigate, film and distribute exposés on the country’s farms.
Exposés by animal rights groups show violations of strict animal welfare laws and codes of practice, and it’s tempting to assume that the horrific events exposed are the fault of a few bad actors in an industry that should be focused on animal welfare. But in many cases, this is not the case.
Check out the recently released video Animal Equality UK at Cross FarmFootage of an intensive pig farm in Devon shows piglets lying on dirty floors, drinking milk from their mothers in farrowing boxes just slightly larger than their own bodies.
The piglets had their teeth and tails cut off without any painkillers. The weak piglets were killed by being grabbed by the legs and swung onto a concrete floor, a method known as “bludgeoning to death.”
pain
Public reaction indicates they feel their trust has been violated, with some saying: “I’m not a vegetarian but I expect animals to be properly cared for and euthanised”, and others claiming the footage is illegal: “There needs to be a way to prosecute supermarkets, they are complicit in this”.
But the practice is legal and commonplace: Tail “docking” is a legal way to prevent tail biting, a habit that stems from the indoor farming conditions where 60 percent of pigs are raised.
This must be done before the piglets are 7 days old, during which time they may legally not be given painkillers. Breeding sows may legally be kept in cages from birth until weaning. Smacking piglets is not only legal, it is encouraged; if done hard enough and quickly, it is considered better than letting them die from starvation or crushing.
Think ‘premium cuts’, ‘top quality’ foods and ‘butcher’s choice’ – saying ‘100% British’ or ‘animal welfare certified’ on the packaging simply reassures consumers that the product comes from an ethical, reputable source and has great care for the animals, so they have no qualms about buying.
So if the Government is serious about tackling consumer ignorance about animal products, politicians and ministers should be thinking about how to properly inform the public about that bag of British ham.
Imagine a world where a label could tell you if your pork came from a piglet that had its tail docked without painkillers, that was forced to suckle in a cage barely bigger than its mother, and that its weaker siblings were killed by slamming their heads against the wall of a pigsty.
This author
Eva Reid is a PhD student at the London School of Economics.
