Every year on 2 October, World Farm Animals Day gives us an important opportunity to bring attention to the farmed animals behind our food system, and how intensive factory farming impacts upon their welfare.
Britain is often described as a nation of animal lovers. If that is true, our treatment of farmed animals should prove it.
Yet billions of animals are still reared in systems that compromise their welfare.
That includes so-called ‘Frankenchickens’, fast-growing breeds of chicken bred to reach slaughter weight in just a matter of weeks. This unnaturally rapid growth can cause serious welfare problems, including painful leg, heart and breathing conditions. With more than one billion chickens reared for meat in the UK each year, moving away from these breeds could transform the lives of animals on an enormous scale.
We must also continue the push to end the use of farrowing crates, which severely restrict the movement of mother pigs around the time they give birth. For weeks at a time, a sow may be unable even to turn around or properly express natural behaviours such as nest building. This severe confinement practice repeats itself with each new litter.
And let’s not forget fish are farmed animals too. Millions of fish are farmed in the UK, yet they are too often missing from discussions about farm animal welfare. Fish are sentient animals capable of experiencing pain and distress, and they deserve meaningful welfare protections throughout their lives and at slaughter, yet remain the only farmed animal not to have any species- specific legislation at slaughter to protect them like their land counterparts.
Consumers also need to be part of the picture. Clear and consistent method-of-production labelling would give people greater transparency about how the food on supermarket shelves has been produced, enabling them to make informed choices and helping to recognise farmers who invest in higher welfare standards.
At the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation, we are campaigning for practical reforms that can make a tangible difference: an end pig farrowing crates, move away from fast-growing ‘Frankenchicken’ breeds, stronger legal protections for farmed fish and mandatory clearer food labelling.
And advancing farmed animal welfare must go hand in hand with supporting British farmers who adopt higher welfare. We should champion higher welfare farming at home while ensuring that British farmers are not undercut by imports produced to standards that would not be acceptable here.
World Farm Animals Day should be more than a date in the diary. It should be a reminder that behind the statistics are individual animals whose welfare depends on the choices we make, as consumers, as an industry and through government policy.
If we want to call ourselves a nation of animal lovers, let’s make sure our treatment of farmed animals lives up to it.