To ask about animal welfare on organic farms?

[FourForYouGlenCocoYouGoGlenCoco]

I’ve eaten meat and fish all my life, and most of the time, I wouldn’t really think about where it came from and how it was raised. Mainly because I didn’t want to (because it’s mostly horrible). I’m not proud of this. There’s lots of evidence out there to show both sides of the story - animals being treated really well (which of course costs farmers a lot, and the cost is then passed onto consumers) and animals being treated horribly.

I’d like to carry on eating meat and fish, and am eating less of it but buying the highest welfare meat and fish I can.

I’ve recently started buying organic meat from veg and meat box companies rather than from supermarkets. There are some very well known ones - I don’t want to say their names out on here in case anyone thinks I’m using this thread to promote them, but one of them is based in Devon and has ‘River’ in its name, and the other has the initials A and C. There are of course lots of others out there!

Obviously, buying organic meat from these companies is very expensive, but they seem to have very good welfare standards. They show videos of animals living at the farms that provide them with meat, and there’s nothing I’ve found online that suggests the animals are mistreated or that they are living in horrible conditions. At least, for their chicken farms, the birds all seem to live a properly free-range life where they can behave naturally. The most cynical part of me thinks, okay, this could just be all for show, but I don’t think it is.

My question is - does anyone know what animal welfare standards are like in general at organic independent farms? I would think it’s better than most (if not all) supermarkets, but would be interested to hear from anyone who knows more. Thank you!

After the happy egg company got exposed, I don’t really trust any farms tbh. The rspca said it was the worst case of animal cruelty they’d ever dealt with. And I know the harling pig farm wasn’t organic, but they were meant to be ahead in every aspect of animal welfare and look what happened there. The owner blew his own brains out with a shotgun before he had to go to trial when people found out what was happening on his farm. The only ones I trust are small, local farmers I know personally, or hobby breeders with small holdings whose facilities I’ve actually seen.

This is from a farming animal welfare charity and appears to be evidence based: www.ciwf.org.uk/news/2009/08/organic-is-better-for-the-animals-and-for-you-too

Organic doesn’t equate high welfare. It means no pesticides/ chemicals used on the farm.

Animal welfare is the same on all farms, intensive or not. Animals don't want to die, no matter how important bacon is to you, and killing them is unethical. Personally I don't see how anyone can eat them and live with themselves once you know how shit their lives are.

Exactly as jupiter15 says, organic isn't related to welfare, you can have organic factory farms technically

As for free range poultry - be aware that at the minute all birds are to be kept quarantined and are not allowed to free range again due to the bird flu outbreak - in these cases free range is sort of a misnomer and also does t guarantee welfare as all birds are technically barn raised at minimum, caged at worst until each quarantine is called off

(I'm a meat eater so only mention it because it is important to be informed about how your meat animals are cared for)

Organic standards for animal welfare, in this country, are higher than those for free range
www.soilassociation.org/take-action/organic-living/why-organic/better-for-animals/

If your primary concern is animal welfare then one good option can be to go to your local farmers market. Mine has several stalls where you can speak to the person who raised the animal.

Venison is a meat which is pretty much guaranteed to be high welfare - a lot of it is wild (some of the herd have to be removed for population management reasons, else they'd cause environmental damage) and it's nigh on impossible to intensively farm them.

I don't eat meat, but if I did that would be where I got it.

This is untrue. I agree it's a bit weird, but the same branding is used to reflect standards for organic crop farming (which is more than just pesticide use, it's fertilizers and soil quality and a lot more) and also welfare standards for meat and dairy farming.

OP, no-one can tell you for certain unless you personally visit the farms where your produce is raised (and even then how would you know the lovely happy fields and animals you were shown weren't just a front from the horrific hell-hole round the back), but on the best evidence available the welfare standards will be higher at an 'average' organic farm than a 'average' red tractor assured or free range farm which in turn will likely be higher than a non assured farm. I say average because I'm sure there are some excellent small-scale producers out there where for whatever reason they don't have the certification, but they are highly unlikely to be selling to Tesco or your average supermarket shelf.

Someone posted the link to the organic welfare standards above, there are of course some issues both environmentally and welfare based even with organic, the only way to be absolutely certain no living being (not just animals, people are involved too) has died or suffered in the production of your food is to go fully plant-based and organic (and even then, deforestation to produce wheat and soya, slave and child labour in third world farming for things like bananas, cocoa, coffee can be real issues, it's a minefield and everyone has to draw their own personal boundaries) - but if you want to keep some meat or dairy in your diet, the very best thing is to only buy from trusted, ideally local suppliers where you can be assured of welfare standards, and short of that organic is the next best publicly available assurance standard. So if you can't buy absolutely all your produce from places like Riverford (I don't mind promoting them, I think they're great), and I'd understand if you can't, they're bloody expensive, you are best off going organic as a general rule of thumb.

You'll get strong opinions on this thread I'm sure, personally I don't let perfection be the enemy of good and so because I can't yet quite cope with fully plant based and some of my loved ones do still eat meat occasionally I prioritise buying organic meat and dairy (this means much less of it overall due to cost and also impact) and ideally from independent suppliers, not supermarkets where possible. All major UK supermarkets have an appalling record on all sorts of things from human rights to the environment to supply chain management so I avoid shopping in them wherever possible...

They all go to the same slaughterhouses at barely any age. The standards of what is legal in slaughter houses is HORRIFIC. Even ‘RSPCA Assured’ ‘humane’ methods of slaughter include gas chambers and clubbing /shooting newborns.

don’t even get me started on the dairy industry - I don’t know if it can ever be ethical to take a baby away from a mother after birth and either kill them for veal or sell them back into the dairy industry, to be killed at 5 when they are ‘spent’. Cows carry their babies for 9 months like we do and bellow for them when they are gone.
and that’s just the tip of the ice Berg, not even including a lot of the exposed footage of the treatment at supposedly high welfare farms.
it’s heartbreaking. I’m not sure that there can be a humane or ethical meat/dairy industry. Possibly only if you know someone that has pet chickens that just happen to lay eggs and they sell them.

I once thought like this. Decided the only way I could guarantee high welfare was to raise animals myself, a few problems with that as I live in a city and even if jr was possible I know I couldn't kill them after that anyway. Been vegan for nearly 5 years now.

Animal welfare is most certainly NOT the same on all farms. I buy local, so I can go and ask the cows and pigs if they want to live. I quite often go and have a chat....... funnily enough they don't really have an opinion on it.

Pop along with them to slaughterhouse and see for yourself if they're still nonchalant about being murdered for a sandwich.

Thanks @10speckledfrogs - yes I am aware of the bird flu outbreak, and that it means no birds are free range atm, because they have to be kept indoors. I am considering not eating chicken for now because of that, to be honest, as I really don’t like the idea of them not having any outside space. Does anyone know when the outbreak is likely to end?

Its all brainwashing anyway. A bit like people advertising soy candles as 100% natural. Are they fuck 100% natural. The wax is chemically extracted from the beans and processed using petroleum based solvents.
If you truly care about animal welfare, don't eat them. Simple!

Such a good point, PBSam - I agree the only way to really guarantee a high standard of welfare for the animals whose meat we eat is to raise them ourselves!

Thank you so much for your post @maxelly! It makes total sense to me, and explains the ethics of meat-eating (and eating food in general!) perfectly, and captures exactly how I feel about eating meat, as well as the thousands of other choices we have to make when buying food - where do we buy it from, should we buy organic, how can we trust our food sources etc etc. Thank you!

I think I will carry on buying food from companies like Riverford etc for now - I agree with you, I think they’re wonderful and I’m glad you think the same. I can’t afford to buy much of it, as it is so pricey, but will likely restrict my meat and fish intake and mostly eat veg, fruit grains, pulses, and then aim to get any dairy and eggs from organic places too. I know this isn’t perfect, but I really don’t think I could be a vegan long-term, or raise my own animals for food (live in a city), so to me, this is the next best thing even if it’s far from perfect.

Also really agree with your thoughts here @SurpriseWombat, and I’d be keen to eat more wild meat if I can find it in a farm shop or somewhere (venison, wild rabbit etc), as I agree it’s more ethical than farmed meat.

Some good,some bad. I worked in a slaughter house and the organic stock were processed alongside the barned and caged animals.

All of them have their food and water withheld two days before slaughter. They arrive tired, hungry and frightened.
But we import over 80,000 tons of chicken from Thailand alone every year, and god knows what horrors they saw.

So buying locally is definitely better option. But there is no humane way to kill an animal in the numbers we need to feed the country.

We slaughtered 10,000 chickens an hour and 9,000 pigs a day at our processing plant.

Such a huge industry driven by profit can never forward the kindness and respect these animals deserve.

I'm in rural Ireland and think lambs have the best life. Mostly outside, with their mother unless the weather is bad and then they are housed together.

Abbatoirs are not great, obviously, but most use Temple Grandin's methods to reduce stress on the animal.

Pigs/poultry are more intensively farmed. I think giving up dairy is better than giving up meat.

So Irish lamb. There are local turkey farms too who rear for Christmas...the turkeys are well looked after but expensive.

What do you mean by ‘supermarkets’, they are supplied by normal farmers around the UK. The average beef herd size in the UK is about 145. The average flock size is around 425.

There isn’t the same level of intensive farming in the UK as you see in America when you see massive feed lots.

@fyn I meant average supermarkets, covering anything from more budget-style supermarkets to the high-end ones. I saw some nasty footage from PETA about conditions on a chicken farm that supplies an expensive supermarket (the supermarket starts with M, and its name is made up of two names). The footage showed chickens kept in really cramped conditions, with hardly any room to move, with live chickens moving around ones who had died or were badly injured. The video doesn’t show direct abuse of them or anything, but it was still really shocking and showed that they were suffering.

Organic means FA. Organic means they’re being fed organic grains and not given antibiotics as standard.

what you’re looking for is organic AND pasture raised. So I only eat pasture raised beef, chicken and eggs. Only wild line caught salmon. Not only is it better for the animal, it is better for our health (and theirs).

because of this I currently cannot get hold of an entire chicken for roasting, there seems to be a shortage! Mildly annoying.

I grew up on an organic beef farm. Our suckler cows were extremely well cared for. Their lives were very happy and relaxed. We knew them all by name and they knew us too, and many would stroll over for a scratch when we walked through the field. The bullocks that went for meat had wonderful lives too until they were sent for slaughter. That was always a sad day, but ALL food production involves the death of animals. In the case of fruit and veg the animals that die are ‘pests’ such as rabbits, deer, rats, squirrels. But they still die so humans can eat.
Organic welfare standards are very high, and the Soil Association checks on our farm were very thorough (in stark contrast to schemes like Red Tractor, which is a pointless box ticking exercise ill suited to small scale farming and with no interest at all in animal welfare). I do not eat meat unless it’s organic for exactly this reason.

@OhNoOhDearOh This is not true. The Soil Association has stringent animal welfare standards that require cattle etc to be pasture fed/outdoor bred. Soil Association organic certification is a much better mark of animal welfare standards than any of the other vague and poorly policed labels you will see.

We have ex-commercial chickens and you can tell the difference in condition between those that came from an organic farm, a free range farm, or an intensive farm when you pick them up from the collection point.

Organic certification for food includes strict welfare rules so there shouldn't be abuses, but there are always cases that will hit thenews hard when it happens.

We're fortunate that we live in an area where meat is locally reared and grazed, and so we can buy from trusted outlets and know exactly which farm raised them, with the bonus that we can do a drive by and see whether the animals seem to be well cared for. But yes, like you we now eat less meat and only from trusted sources.

As far as dairy goes, having visited Yeo Valley's farm in Blagdon, I can confirm that their dairy cows also seem very happy, and that you should visit the organic gardens there and listen to them talk about the lengths they go to provide the perfect diet for their cows through regenerative farming techniques. I learned a lot about how organic farming is a lot more than a lack of pesticides on that visit and would strongly recommend it if you're interested in finding out more.

@PBSam Slaughterhouses aren’t nice, no. Nor are any of the methods of pest control required on arable or vegetable farms. Nor is the damage huge cereal growing fields cause to the ecosystem because of spraying, hedgerow loss, etc. There aren’t any easy answers to the problem of how to feed humanity.