Farm animal welfare : a systemic challenge

There are two questions that are central to talk of improvements in any particular human enterprise: Who decides what constitutes "better" in any specific context? And what particular criteria for betterment are privileged in that context? As animal scientist David Fraser illustrates in his chapter on the intensification of livestock production, even in the case of something as seemingly straightforward as the welfare of farm animals, to address these questions seriously is to enter into a world of complexity, uncertainty, contextuality, and inevitable controversy. As he states it, Fraser's purpose here is not to fight the fight against what he refers to as the Standard Critique of intensive animal production. This, as he sees it, essentially argues either for the rejection of animal agriculture altogether and the universal adoption of a vegetarian diet or for a return to extensive, non-confinement forms of livestock production. Rather, in accepting the reality that intensive animal agriculture is an embedded aspect of modern life, he seeks improvements to entire systems of livestock production that reflect concerns for values of animal care which can be expressed in acceptable practices and indeed, social policy, to that end.