What are households willing to pay for higher animal welfare?

The tool, which creates 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, has been developed at the University of Reading.

Project lead, professor Richard Bennett, said for too long, animal welfare had been difficult to factor into policy decisions due to the lack of a standardised way to measure its value.

“This research finally provides that tool. Farmers, retailers and the government can now assess whether welfare improvements represent good value for money, using welfare scores based on independent expert judgement and real public preferences,” he told the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare seminar.

Welfare scoring

The method uses a 0-100 welfare score, where 0 represents extreme suffering and 100 denotes the highest achievable welfare. An expert panel of 14 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 how much 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.

Welfare of layers, broilers and other farm animals

The research evaluated different farming scenarios, revealing some large differences in welfare scores.

• Layers: Caged egg production currently scores just 32 out of 100, while free-range scores 51. The study found UK households would collectively pay £496 million per year to move the 21% of hens in cages to free-range housing, equivalent to 20p per egg.
• Broilers: 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.
• Pigs: 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 (£2.52 per kg of pork) by UK households. The report found that just limiting crate use to a shorter period of a pig’s life would also have benefits.
• Dairy cows: 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.
• Lambs: Using pain relief for lamb castration would increase welfare scores from 53 to 56, worth £320 million annually (£1.12 per kg). Eliminating castration altogether would raise the score to 60, valued at £717 million per year.

A moral duty to safeguard animal welfare

Commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and conducted at the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development at the University of Reading, the survey found strong public support for welfare improvements. Up to 85% agreed there was a moral duty to safeguard animal welfare, while 86% supported regulation to improve welfare levels across all farm animals.

The welfare assessment protocol draws on the widely-accepted Five Domains of Animal Welfare model and adapts elements of the EU Welfare Quality protocols, expanding them to consider animals’ mental states and whole-life experiences, rather than just physical measurements taken during farm visits.

Quickly estimate the benefits of proposed welfare changes

The new valuation tables allow policymakers to estimate the benefits of proposed welfare changes quickly. For example, if proposing a new policy to improve broiler welfare from 40 to 45, policymakers can look up the value (£22.14 per household per year) and multiply it by the UK’s 28.4 million households to calculate the total annual benefit of £628.8 million.

The figures can be compared with costs to determine whether policies represent good value for money.

Commenting on the model, RSPCA head of public affairs David Bowles, said: “As a nation of animal lovers, people are caring more and more about where their food comes from, and deserve as much information as possible about the welfare of animals reared for food. This important research confirms consumers are often prepared to pay more if it ensures farmed animals have enjoyed a better life.”