Farm animal welfare:
a regulatory history
Dr Abigail Woods
Centre for the History of Science,
Technology and Medicine
Imperial College London
The governance of FAW
• EU
– Directives
– Conventions of the council of europe
• British government
– 2006 Animal welfare act
– Voluntary codes of practice
– FAWC, Animal Health
• Private
– farm assurance schemes.
The British government’s role
Key questions:
• How / why / when did it become
involved in regulating farm animal
welfare?
• What did it think welfare was?
Origin stories:
The ancient contract
(Rollin)
Origin stories:
The rise of welfare
(Webster)
• 1965 Brambell committee
• 1968 Agriculture Act
– Welfare standards
– FAWAC
– Welfare codes
Origin stories
• See welfare as a fundamentally new
concept, that arose in the 1960s as a
result of intensive farming practices, and
required new government interventions.
• But all disciplines have their (often
historically unsupported) founding myths –
– is there any truth in this one?
A plea for historical continuity:
• The 1968 act and the subsequent welfare
codes simply extended to farms the type
of measures laid down in earlier legislation
for protection of animals in transit.
• Major change did not take place until
c1980 (at the earliest).
i) The legislative picture
•
By 1960, farm animals protected by a
patchwork of legislation:
1. In public spaces (1822, 1835 1849, 1911)
2. In transit (1869, 1894, 1927, 1950 Acts)
3. At slaughterhouses (1954, 1958)
• In public spaces:
– Included in broader
legislation (1911) to
prevent animal cruelty and
avoidable suffering
– Responsibility of the Home
Office & Local Authorities.
• In transit:
– Provoked by growth in transport, associated disease
spread and humanitarian concerns
– Responsibility of state vets & Local authorities
ii) Intensification & the animal body
• Drive to increase productivity and critique of
practices date from at least the 19thC
• eg urban dairies
• Eg inter-war ‘progressive’
dairying
ii) Intensification & the animal body
Q:
• So why did state-led welfare interventions
not happen earlier?
A:
• Such practices were seen as ‘bad farming’
• State intervention not considered: nature
would restore order, eg by disease.
ii) Intensification & the animal body
Post-WWII
• New definitions of good
and bad farming
• Changing nature of
intensification
– Larger scale; indoor
– Farm becomes a factory
(or a cattle truck?)
•
P Brassley, ‘Output and technical change in 20th century British Agriculture’,
Ag Hist Rev 48 (2000), p62
ii) Intensification & the animal body
• Post-WWII: new critique
– No longer expect redress from
nature
– Farmers are harming nature with aid
of science (Carson, Silent Spring,
1962)
ii) Intensification & the animal body
1964: Harrison’s Animal Machines
• Not the first critique of factory farming;
the first to prompt MAFF action
–
–
–
–
unemotional tone
attacked MAFF defences.
huge publicity
political pressure.
• Officials look to transit regulations for
inspiration
but
iii) The concept of welfare
• Pre-1960s, key terms are animal protection,
cruelty, suffering and humanity
• Welfare used mainly in relation to ‘welfare
societies’
• Use of welfare increases early 60s.
• Enters mainstream following 1964/5
Brambell committee inquiry ‘into the welfare
of animals’
iii) The concept of welfare
What did it mean?
• For Brambell committee:
– physical and mental wellbeing
• For MAFF officials, farmers and many
vets:
– the converse of suffering
– a new name for animal protection
iii) The concept of welfare
• Doesn’t the new legislation / codes
implement a new concept of welfare?
• Closely resemble transit regulations &
drawn up by the same people (vets).
• MAFF’s legal understanding is that welfare
= ‘absence of unnecessary pain or distress’:
FAWAC told to work within this definition.
From animal protection to animal
wellbeing
• Driven by Harrison
• institutionalised by FAWC (1979)
• Aided by scientific research
(Dawkins)
• Re-iterated by 1980-1 agriculture
select committee
Conclude
• The early history of FAW regulation in
Britain amounted to a re-branding exercise:
From the protection of animals in
transit….to the promotion of animal welfare.