Richter et al. (2023) on Swiss Views on Meat Reduction Policies

Sebastian Richter, Adrian Muller, Mathias Stolze, Isabelle Schneider, and Christian Schader, “Acceptance of Meat Reduction Policies in Switzerland.” iScience 26: 106129, March 17, 2023. 

• Stakeholders in the current food system in Switzerland (as well as elsewhere) might find some reforms aimed at reducing meat consumption to be more acceptable than other reforms. 

• From interviews with 25 stakeholders (political parties, food business associations, relevant government agencies – but not consumers), the authors compiled a list of 37 measures that could reduce meat consumption. 

• 23 stakeholders (including 13 from the original interviewee pool) then indicated their degree of acceptability for each of the 37 measures. For each policy reform, stakeholders indicated either approval; conditional approval (with explanation); rejection; or indifference. 

• The authors group the reforms into seven “types”, such as “voluntary measures” or “information measures”; various versions of incentives; regulations; and others. 

• Research funding, voluntary measures, and information measures all meet with high acceptance. Greater antibiotic control also generated little disapproval. 

•  “The measures most frequently rejected are the regulatory measures ‘mandatory limit on the share of meat products in the overall retail assortments’, ‘regulation of nudging for meat alternatives’ by the state as well as the financial incentives ‘VAT exemption for vegetable foods’, ‘increase VAT for meat products to >7.7%’ [p. 8].” 

• Coercive negative incentive measures (taxes, basically) meet with substantial rejection. 

• Nonprofits, research institutes, and state bodies are generally more accepting of meat-reducing measures; the food industry and political parties are among the most unenthusiastic. 

• Factors affecting acceptance include lead times and grace periods; clarity and transparency; and coherence among multiple policies. 

• Promotion of meat alternatives does not fare particularly well in terms of acceptance. 

• Coherent policy packages (including taxes with earmarked distributions of revenue) might be more acceptable than policies viewed in isolation (which is the approach to approval attitudes taken in this article).

Sullivan (2013) on Animal Welfare Labels

Sean P. Sullivan, “Empowering Market Regulation of Agricultural Animal Welfare Through Product Labeling.” Animal Law Review 19(2), 2013. 

• The welfare of (so-called) agricultural animals receives little legal protection in the US.

• Two sources of federal animal protection, the Humane Slaughter Act and the Twenty-Eight Hour law, exclude poultry -- and the Slaughter Act excludes fish, too. Even these federal rules are underenforced.

• State-level laws specifying better animal welfare standards (than what federal law calls for) might be ruled unconstitutional as a violation of the Dormant Commerce Clause. [In April 2023, we are awaiting a Supreme Court decision that will (presumably) directly address this issue.]

• The US relies significantly on “market regulation” (consumers voting with their wallets) to provide animal welfare. Under this approach, some firms will cater to consumers who are not very interested in animal welfare, while other firms will provide higher animal welfare (meat and other products) aimed at consumers who are willing to pay for enhanced animal welfare. [Of course, it is asking a lot for market regulation to produce "socially optimal" levels of animal welfare, even if you accept the nearly-always-unspoken-but-there premise that it is only human preferences that count for social welfare.]

• In practice, there seems to be very little consumer willingness-to-pay for higher animal welfare products (at least when this article was published in 2013 – has this situation changed?) People say they are interested in providing better welfare to farm animals, but food purchases provide little evidence of such an interest.

• One “resolution” of the paradox is that consumers do not have an easy means to actually purchase enhanced animal welfare products.  The problem is that the information of how animals are treated is hard (or impossible) to judge when making purchasing decisions – so producers lack an incentive to devote resources to higher animal welfare.

• A credence good or characteristic is one where consumers are not sure of the “quality” of that characteristic even after they have purchased and consumed the product (as opposed to search or experience goods). If you consumed a food item earlier today with a dairy or egg ingredient, do you know the welfare provision for the animal who supplied that product? [My students admit that they don't.]

• Part of the problem is that labels on consumer animal products often lack credibility and clarity.  Current rules forbidding false or misleading labels are rendered pretty toothless when the actual animal welfare conditions are not monitored. Widespread absence of third-party auditing implies that animal welfare claims lack credibility. 

• The voluntary provision of credible labels can be crowded out by a plethora of not credible labels (muddying the waters or signal jamming) – even labels are a credence characteristic! For instance, “free range” does mean something about the living conditions of poultry (though not other animals, and not even egg laying hens) – but it doesn’t mean, for instance, that most chickens ever spend any time outdoors. "Pasture-raised," "grass-fed," "natural" – these terms (and others) lack standardized definitions.

• If animal welfare is a credence attribute, producers will only provide the minimum level of welfare that is consistent with profit seeking. 

• Credible labels could convert animal welfare into a search good, as opposed to a credence good.

• Making labels credible will require some level of harmonization, standards to earn a label like "high-animal-welfare-certified." But what level of animal welfare should be required to earn such a designation?

• And credible labels require that the conditions they certify are subject to verification. Is the USDA the right entity to engage in such verification, given its dual role in both regulating agriculture and promoting it? 

• A fairly coarse label like "high-animal-welfare-certified," could be integrated with less coarse supplements (like "enhanced and diverse outdoor environments").

• So, moving towards a credible system of labelling could help market regulation result in something closer to the levels of animal welfare people really desire. But we still are only talking about consumer preferences, not the preferences of the animals themselves.

Anomaly (2015) on Factory Farming

 Anomaly, Jonathan, “What’s Wrong with Factory Farming?” Public Health Ethics 8(3): 246-254, 2015. 

• Today’s factory farms got to this condition through competitive pressures to reduce costs. 

• Three “moral” problems concern: (1) zoonoses; (2) antibiotics; and (3) cruelty. These problems are not reflected in market prices for animal products. 

• Close (indoor) confinement is a breeding ground for the creation and spread of pathogens. Some of these pathogens can spread to humans. Is it justifiable to use a production method that threatens pandemics and otherwise endangers human health? 

• Antibiotic use is prevalent in factory farms – in part because antibiotics can help promote growth. Massive use of antibiotics and the close confinement allow antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria to develop and thrive and infest the local environment… and sometimes to spread to humans. 

• Anomaly suggests antibiotics be taxed, banned for growth promotion or to fight unhealthy farm conditions, and overseen by veterinarians. “Allowing farmers to administer antibiotics indiscriminately is tantamount to allowing them to decide how much harm they would like to inflict on other people [p. 251].” 

• Farm animals and “traditional” practices are often excluded from coverage of animal welfare laws.

• “Germany has banned cages and crates for all farm animals [p. 250].” Improving conditions of confinement and eliminating antibiotics are not especially costly measures.

Sunstein on Animal Welfare Cascades

Sunstein, Cass R., “’It’s A Cookbook’: Animal Welfare Cascades.” Harvard Public Law Working Paper No. 21-48, June 14, 2021.

• The title of this article draws upon a Twilight Zone episode where aliens who are visiting the earth possess a book with the originally confidence-inspiring title, "To Serve Man." A second Twilight Zone episode is referenced, where Martians keep humans as zoo animals.

• Sunstein explores the possibility, which he welcomes, that we will see a swift, massive shift for the better in our treatment of animals.

• Drawing on work by Timur Kuran (of Private Truths, Public Lies fame) and others, Sunstein identifies four factors that help to produce swift turnabouts: (1) preference falsification; (2) diverse thresholds; (3) interdependencies; and (4) group polarization. 

• Preference falsification is where people, in public, misrepresent their true beliefs, perhaps because of societal oppression or just an interest in matching what others claim to believe. Diverse thresholds is the notion that some people are willing to be ice-breakers, willing to publicize their true beliefs even when there is no evident support; others will join in as the scale of the minority opinion grows. [Note the emperor's new clothes example: everyone publicly lied about the emperor's clothing, until one child spoke the truth -- the rest then joined in.]

• "Interdependencies" refer to the complex connections among people and those varying thresholds, suggesting that very similar conditions could nonetheless result in extremally different outcomes due to small changes in interdependencies. Group polarization recognizes that when people holding similar ideas get together, the group often moves in a more "radical" direction, because of information exchange and/or a desire for individuals to develop and maintain a strong reputation within their group. 

• The four factors, their complexity and their interactions, mean that accurate predictions cannot be expected about social revolutions. "We might think that a practice was bound to change, but it really was not. It happened to change. The same is true if it does not fall. It happened not to change [p. 7]."

• A side note (page 8) on preference falsification. Preferences might be endogenous with respect to the status quo -- and carnism is a pretty entrenched status quo! People might be accepting of the status quo, not noticing the water they swim in -- though that acceptance could itself change when alternatives are brought to their attention.

• With respect to preference falsification, many people must have more-or-less unspoken or unacknowledged reservations about our treatment of animals, but are loath to bring up those reservations or give them much sway. Sunstein recounts the extreme vitriol (including death threats) sent his way when he was undergoing Senate confirmation for his former government post, based on his exaggerated reputation for being excessively animal-friendly. He indicates that he has held back somewhat on animal welfare in the wake of the vituperation. 

• With respect to animal welfare, the four factors suggest that an increase in vegetarianism, for instance, could become contagious. Pro-animal acts by celebrities, or trusted individuals, or even unexpected people ("surprising validators [p. 10],” like macho vegan athletes), can be helpful in initiating a cascade. 

• The movement for a more just relationship with animals will transform preferences, not just reveal them.

Leitzel and Shaikh on Animal Standing in Cost-Benefit Analysis

This blog has been part of an effort to produce some social science papers concerning animal welfare and economics, and the first of those papers is now available: "The Economic Standing of Animals," by Jim Leitzel and Sabina Shaikh. The paper can be downloaded here. 

Abstract: 

Should nonhuman animals possess cost-benefit analysis (CBA) standing, and if so, to what extent? A lack of standing for animals does not mean that their interests are ignored; rather, it implies that their interests are only accounted for to the extent that those with standing – humans – feel some regard for animal welfare.

This paper addresses farm animal policy in the United States and looks at how CBAs are altered as animal interests range from “no standing” to “human-equivalent” standing. Even with no standing for animals, the degree of animal welfare offered by current animal agricultural practices is inefficiently low: human preferences for animal welfare are less than fully reflected in the economic and political marketplaces. Policies that counter existing shortcomings in the markets for animal welfare could be paired with transparency measures that would help ensure that consumers and voters are better informed about the conditions under which farmed animals are raised. Uncertainty concerning the appropriate degree of animal standing counsels for the avoidance of policies that would be highly undesirable if the proper extent of standing turns out to be significantly smaller or larger than expected.

Maes et al. (2019) on Intensive Pig "Farming"

Dominiek G. D. Maes, Jeroen Dewulf, Carlos Piñeiro, Sandra Edwards, and Ilias Kyriazakis, "A Critical Reflection on Intensive Pork Production with an Emphasis on Animal Health and Welfare." Journal of Animal Science 98(Suppl. 1): S15–S26, 2019. 

• As the title suggests, both health and welfare are examined in this article, though the bullet-point "summary" here will focus primarily on the welfare discussion.

• "Improved animal nutrition, feed efficiency, health management, environmental control, reproduction management, genetic selection for better performance, and consistency of product quality and delivery to the marketplace have been the main objectives in the development of intensive livestock production [p. S15]."

• Intensive (indoor) pig farming brings many health benefits for the pigs relative to alternative husbandry methods, though often with the excessive use of antimicrobials. Early weaning of piglets, however, heightens stress and also contributes to health problems. 

• The assessment of pig welfare has made significant strides in recent decades. The authors employ the EU-initiated Welfare Quality® assessment [pdf here; 21-minute video here]. 

• Among the pig welfare problems that occur with intensive production are painful tail docking and teeth clipping; little room (indeed, sometimes confinement in tiny crates), little environmental stimulation, little opportunity to engage in normal behaviors such as rooting or nest building; and flooring that is slatted or concrete and contributes to lameness and other health problems.

• The authors offer many suggestions to improve the health and welfare of pigs, such as improving the flooring and enriching the environment, and reducing the painful (and non-anesthetized) surgical procedures. More space per animal (and fewer crates) are high-priority needs.

• How about more transparency?: "informing the public properly about the health and welfare of the animals, and providing greater transparency in farming operations, eventually by providing (digital) visual access to the animal facilities, might be required [p. S22]."

Bonnet et al. (2020) on Regulating Meat Consumption

Céline Bonnet, Zohra Bouamra-Mechemache, Vincent Réquillart, and Nicolas Treich, “Viewpoint: Regulating Meat Consumption to Improve Health, the Environment and Animal Welfare.” Food Policy 97 (101847), December 2020.

• Regulations are perhaps advisable to counter meat impacts on human health, the environment, and animal welfare.

• Many of the health effects are not externalities, in that they come in the form of increased health risks for people who consume a lot of meat.

• Some external health effects present themselves in the form of zoonoses (like Covid-19?) and antibiotic resistance. 

• On the environmental front, animal agriculture involves significant greenhouse gas emissions, along with nasty air and water pollution and deforestation.

• CAFOs could have lower per-animal greenhouse gas emissions than less intensive farming methods. Free-range settings might also undermine some dimensions of animal welfare, too, perhaps by reducing protection against predators.

• Globally, on the order of three-quarters of land used for agriculture is devoted to animal agriculture (pastures, grazing, and the growing of animal feed).

• Major animal welfare concerns include: brief lifetimes spent exclusively in close confinement; lopping off of sensitive body parts without anesthesia; and, quick disposal of male chicks for laying hens, calves for dairy cows. And the numbers of animals affected are immense. 

• "In any case, the immense challenge of evaluating animal welfare does not provide a good enough reason to ignore animal welfare, and may instead warrant a precautionary approach"

• Regulations could target producers as opposed to meat – but such approaches often are hard to implement or are ineffective.

• Meat taxes are one way to try to address environmental, health, and animal welfare concerns; better information provision is a second method. Finally, behavioral interventions, such as establishing meatless Mondays, or altering the placement of vegetarian options on menus, or even making vegetarian the default setting in some circumstances, might hold some promise.