John: In my opinion the simplest and best definition of good welfare is “Fit and Happy”. Our responsibility to any animal in our care is to promote a sense of physical and emotional well-being: the former through provision of good feeding, good health and physical comfort, the latter through absence of fear and stress, and reasonable freedom of expression, best expressed as freedom of choice.

Animal welfare science is a multidisciplinary affair, requiring understanding of physiology (e.g. pain), motivation and behaviour (e.g. fear) and the causes of ill-health, especially the man-made “production diseases” (e.g. lameness).

A prime fundamental aim of welfare science is to better understand the nature of sentience in farm animals (mammals, birds and fish). I believe that sentience is best defined as “feelings that matter”. We study motivation as a measure of how much they matter. We have learnt that sentient animals do not just live in the present. After responding to any challenge they review their response. If they learn that they can cope they will adapt and feel better in the future. If they learn that they cannot cope, or are prevented from coping by the restrictions of their environment, they will suffer. Applied farm animal welfare science seeks to develop husbandry practices that significantly reduce the threats to physical and emotional welfare: the aim being to achieve a good quality of life and, at the end, a gentle death.

Philip: What is the place of farm animal welfare in relation to the ecosystem and biosphere?

John: Farm animal welfare is important to me but not all-important. It is just one aspect of my overall struggle to act according to the principle of respect for all life. I interpret this in practical terms as “Planet Husbandry”. Thus while I concede the obvious fact that the rich consume far too much meat and dairy products, I reject, on ecological grounds, the argument that everybody should stop eating these things altogether.

Farm animals have been essential to traditional, sustainable agriculture: pigs and poultry scavenged the food we discarded or dropped, cattle and sheep grazed food we couldn’t eat on land we didn’t own. The commercial production of too much meat for the rich and the overgrazing of pastures by the poor have undeniably contributed to environmental degradation. Nevertheless good animal husbandry can make a real contribution to the sustainability of the living environment.

Permanent pastures or, even better, silvo-pastoral systems made up of grasses, trees and shrubs, can make a significant contribution not only to food production but also to carbon sequestration, water management and wildlife conservation. The sale of food from grazing animals enjoying good welfare while contributing to the management of these environments can make a significant contribution to their upkeep but we cannot expect it to cover the full cost. This unreasonable short-term thinking has led, at one extreme, to intensive feedlots for beef cattle; at the other to desertification of the African savannah.

We as a society must accept that we have a financial obligation to support the long-term survival of the living environment, and that cannot simply be met by raising the price of beef. This is a theme that runs throughout my new book.

Philip: Thank you!

John’s latest book, Animal Husbandry Regained: The Place of Farm Animals in Sustainable Agriculture, is published by Earthscan from Routledge and costs £29.99 in paperback and £85.00 in hardback. The publishers are offering Compassion supporters a special 20% discount for online direct orders. Please use the DC361 at the checkout here.

Animal Husbandry Regained – Part 1