Welfare on farm and beyond

Everybody reading this is probably aware of the Panorama programme that set out to investigate animal welfare on dairy farms. The programme created headlines in newspapers and on the internet by highlighting completely unacceptable animal abuse. Such videos are unfortunately not unusual, and seem to always produce the same response — cries of ‘this is a tiny minority’ and ‘it's not representative’ from the industry, cancellation from purchasers, and claims from activists that ‘this is just the tip of the iceberg of abuse’. Sometimes, there's also industry complacency (‘steps have been taken’), which is then shown up by new material showing that very little has changed. They are a clear and present part of the campaign against farming by activists who do not see any benefit in livestock farming and believe that the failures of individuals mean that the system is corrupt.

Perhaps the more interesting part of the programme was a focus not just on egregious animal abuse but also on less immediately eye-catching welfare issues, such as the use of hip-hoists, lameness and cow-calf separation. This is a much more interesting area than blatant cruelty, which no one can defend. Of the three, hip hoists are perhaps the most immediately viscerally distressing to the general public. They can be useful, even crucial, in the management of down cows, but too often they are used with insufficient consideration of the cow. It is often done with good intentions (‘she'll be better if I…’), but perhaps farmers should think more carefully when using them and consider what it would be like if it were to appear on YouTube.