North American society is demanding changes to the way farmers care for farm animals, according to Colorado State University philosopher Bernard Rollin.
The public has moved beyond just wanting to protect animals from obvious cruelty and now wants the agricultural community to ensure it is meeting the social, behavioral, psychological and physical needs of animals in confinement hog barns, poultry barns and beef feedlots, Rollin said during a recent visit to Alberta.
“What this means is that animals with bones and muscles are meant to move and should be provided with the opportunity to exercise in intensive operations,” he said. “It means social animals need the opportunity to interact with others of their species. It means pigs that like to wallow and root in mud should have the chance to do so.”
Read Also
Going beyond “Resistant” on crop seed labels
Variety resistance is getting more specific on crop disease pathogens, but that information must be conveyed in a way that actually helps producers make rotation decisions.
Rollin, an advocate for ethical animal treatment who is responsible for writing laws governing the use of laboratory animals in the United States, said the livestock industry must adapt to this new public ethic or face legislated changes.
Rollin was in Lethbridge, Alta., Oct. 13-17 as part of the visiting scientist program at the Agriculture Canada research centre.
He said public attitude toward agricultural use of animals has changed for two reasons: The industrialization of agriculture following the Second World War changed the way farm animals are raised. Society changes in the 1960s, with greater focus on the rights of minority groups, has been transferred to animals in the 1990s.
Before agricultural industrialization, the farmer protected animals from predators and gave them supplementary feed and shelter. The farmer benefited through marketing the meat.
With the arrival of antibiotics and other technologies producers were able to confine animals to pens. It created “an entirely new class of animal abuse,” according to Rollin.
“A whole class of diseases exists because of industrial production. These diseases, like liver abscesses in feedlot cattle, are called production diseases,” he said.
Behavioral problems such as tail-biting in hogs increased as well, leading to tail-docking and teeth extractions to deal with problems created by confinement.
Traditional practices such as branding, castration and dehorning in the cattle industry also give rise to concerns, said Rollin.
Rollin said producers shouldn’t worry about the more radical elements in the animal rights movement but producers should respond to the emerging new animal welfare ethic. The challenge is to reassure people the food they eat is raised in a humane fashion.
“People want animals to live decent lives. Then they’ll eat meat without guilt.”
Lethbridge Research Centre bio-economist Brian Freeze, who co-ordinated the program that brought Rollin to the centre, said Alberta’s livestock industry is taking action.
The formation of the Alberta Farm Animal Council, with the participation of major livestock groups and industry players, is one example. The support from the Canada-Alberta Beef Industry Development Fund for Rollin’s seminar is further evidence, said Freeze. It is a joint federal-provincial government program allocating $16.4 million to research into beef production.
