March 2018
Whilst the average person on the street may not understand that they pay around £70 a year to something called the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) they do know that if they are paying farmers they want it to improve animal welfare. In a recent poll for the RSPCA 82% of those asked wanted their money to go towards animal welfare farm support.
So, for the RSPCA, one of the most welcome things that came from the Agriculture blueprint released last month was the Government commitment to retain and where possible improve animal welfare standards and as part of this package pay farmers to improve the welfare of the animals they manage. Animal welfare, like the environment, is a public good that cannot always be driven by the market.
It's not a new concept. In the two seven year rural development programme periods run in the European Union since 2007, over 50 different schemes have been promoted by over ten different countries to improve animal welfare. The RSPCA has looked at each of these to see what lessons we can use when developing our own programmes in the UK.
We know it’s popular. In many countries, including Scotland, the scheme was one of the most popular on offer and was oversubscribed. We know it works. In some countries it reduced mutilations such as tail docking, in others it improved milk quality and reduced mastitis rates in dairy cattle.
So what has prevented the four UK authorities from taking it up? Well mainly lack of money which has seen most of the rural development programme funds go to improve the environment. But the Defra paper will solve this by abolishing the basic farm payment, and diverting those funds into an enhanced programme that can help animal welfare as well as the environment, rural landscapes and access.
The RSPCA has long been arguing that animal welfare is directly related to animal health - by improving welfare you can reduce endemic diseases such as mastitis in dairy cattle, foot rot in sheep. By improving animal health you can improve animal welfare and raise production. The Defra paper acknowledges these links and goes further by asking for new suggestions on how we can improve welfare.
The RSPCA believes we can find some answers in how other countries have run their programmes. Many farmers cite capital costs as a reason for not improving buildings or giving animals more space. Offering one-off grants would solve this problem. Giving farmers incentives to produce at higher welfare standards, such as paying the difference in production costs to the baseline standard, would start to deliver products to the consumer that they say they want to buy.
Like environmental payments, any money for animal welfare would have to meet the tests set by the World Trade Organisation. This is not difficult and indeed every one of the 50 or so EU schemes has satisfied that test over the past 13 years. Like environmental payments, results will have to be clearly defined. But there are now better ways of assessing animal welfare, such as measuring welfare outcomes which looks at the impact of the measure on the overall behaviour and welfare of the animal.
Of course there are barriers to overcome. We don't know how much money will be available and we need to make any scheme transparent and easy to access. But the Defra paper is a major step forward to placing animal welfare payments firmly on the agenda. And for a country that passed its first law to improve farm welfare 196 years ago, it cannot come too soon.
David Bowles
Head of Public Affairs, RSPCA
Follow David and RSPCA on twitter: @DavidBowles21 and @RSPCA_PATeam
The opinions expressed in this blog are the author's and not necessarily those of the wider Link membership.
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