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Reading University researchers create tool to put a value on welfare improvements

Alistair DriverBy 4 Mins Read
flexible farrowing pen
The study looked at the welfare implications of indoor farrowing. Pic: ARM Buildings flexible farrowing crate
Researchers at the University of Reading have created new tool for measuring the economic value of farm animal welfare improvements, which they say could potentially transform how supermarkets, shoppers and the government evaluate animal welfare policies. 
Professor Richard Bennett has created a system that assigns comparable welfare scores to different farming systems, linking them to what UK households are willing to pay for higher animal welfare.
The method uses a 0-100 welfare score, where zero represents extreme suffering and 100 denotes the highest achievable welfare. An expert panel of 13 independent animal scientists assessed various farming systems, considering everything from physical health to mental wellbeing and opportunities for natural behaviours throughout an animal’s life from birth to slaughter.
The research then surveyed over 3,000 UK households to determine what they would pay for welfare improvements, revealing that people value animal welfare improvements more highly when current conditions are poor, with willingness to pay declining as welfare standards rise.
The research, which was commissioned by Defra, evaluated different farming scenarios, including indoor pig production but not outdoor pig production.
Indoor pig farming using farrowing crates scores 27, the lowest of all systems assessed. Taking out crates entirely would boost the score to 47 and be valued at £1.4 billion per year (£2.52 per kg of pork) by UK households. Just limiting crate use to a shorter period of a pig’s life would also have benefits, generating a score of 34.
The study revealed stark differences in welfare scores across the sectors:
  • Eggs: Caged hen egg production currently scores just 32 out of 100, whilst free-range systems score 51. The study found UK households would collectively pay £496 million per year to move the 21% of hens in cages to free-range, equivalent to 20p per egg.
  • Chicken: Giving broiler chickens more space per bird would increase welfare scores from 38 to 47. This improvement, benefiting birds in their final week before slaughter, would be valued at £997 million annually, or 92p per bird.
  • Milk and dairy: Current dairy farming practices score 43, with around 30% of cows suffering lameness, Reducing lameness to just 5% of herds would raise the welfare score to 56, and be valued at £1.7 billion per year (11p per litre of milk). This would require improvements that would benefit other aspects of cow welfare.
  • Lamb: Using pain relief for lamb castration would increase welfare scores from 53 to 56, worth £320 million annually (£1.12 per kg of lamb). Eliminating castration altogether would raise scores to 60, valued at £717 million per year.

Public and policymakers

Professor Bennett presented the findings at a Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) seminar on Thursday.

“For too long, animal welfare has been difficult to factor into policy decisions because we lacked a standardised way to measure its value. This research finally provides that tool,” he said.

“Farmers, retailers and the government can now assess whether welfare improvements represent good value for money, using welfare scores based on independent expert judgment and real public preferences.”

The survey found strong public support for welfare improvements, with 85% of respondents agreeing that there is a moral duty to safeguard animal welfare, while 86% supported regulation to improve welfare levels across all farm animals.

Professor Bennett said his method addresses a long-standing gap in UK policy appraisal. The welfare assessment protocol draws on the widely-accepted Five Domains of Animal Welfare model and adapts elements from EU Welfare Quality protocols and expands them to consider animals’ mental states and whole-life experiences, rather than just physical measurements taken during farm visits.

He said the new valuation tables allow policymakers to quickly estimate the benefits of proposed welfare changes.

For example, if proposing a policy to improve chicken broiler welfare from 40 to 45, policymakers can look up the value (£22.14 per household per year) and multiply by the UK’s 28.4 million households, to get the total benefit of £628.8 million annually. These figures can then be compared against costs to decide if policies represent good value for money, he said.

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Editor Pig World, group editor Agronomist and Arable Farmer and Farm Contractor. National Pig Association webmaster. Former political editor at Farmers Guardian. Occasional media pundit. Brought up on a Leicestershire farm. Works from a shed in his Oxfordshire garden.

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