Animal Welfare as One among Several Values to be Considered at Farm Level: The Idea of an Ethical Account for Livestock Farming

Summary

A proposal as to how to combine animal welfare with other goals using an ethical account for livestock farming is presented. The purpose of an ethical account is to report on the consequences of individual events and routine methods on the farm for all affected parties, and to ensure that the farmer is conscious of his ethical priorities. A procedure for an annual account is presented and the concepts involved in it are explained. Welfare assessment involves information from four sources: the system, the system’s application, animal behaviour and animal health. Welfare assessment is an aid for operational management as well as for strategic planning. This ethical account was developed in collaboration with twenty livestock farms over a period of three years. In the course of its evaluation farmers were interviewed by a social scientist who was not directly involved in the project. I was concluded from these interviews that the implementation of welfare assessment, in this way, in the ethical account was a success.