Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
To conclude, the answer to the question of whether animal welfare should be a concern for
organic farming must be yes. Animal welfare concerns have been an integral part of organic
farming from the beginning and can be defended within values espoused by ecocentric ethics.
The organic understanding of animal welfare
The scientific-philosophical debate regarding what animal welfare really is has resulted in
three (partly overlapping) categories of definitions (Duncan and Fraser 1997):
1 The
subjective
experience
approach
argues that the welfare of the animal depends on how the
animal experiences its situation; that is, what matters is its subjective feelings like pleasure,
pain or fear (e.g. Sandøe and Simonsen 1992, Duncan 1993).
2 The
biological
functioning
approach
emphasises the animal's biological function, therefore
welfare, can be measured through traits such as health, production and reproduction. Satis-
factory performance of these functions implies that the animal has good welfare. In one of
the most widely used welfare definitions, 'coping successfully with the environment' is
included along with biological functioning (Broom 1991).
3 The
natural
living
approach
proposes that an animal's welfare depends on its capacity to
perform a natural behaviour and living a 'natural' life in accordance with its genetically
encoded nature or 'telos' as suggested by Rollin (1993). Bernhard Rollin writes (p. 48): 'Not
only will welfare mean control of pain and suffering, it will also entail nurturing and fulfil-
ment of the animals' natures.'
The third category is possibly in best accordance with organic values. Not only is natural
behaviour important, but also food adapted to animal physiology and an environment similar
to the biotope natural to the species are considered important. Studies of organic farmers
suggest that they understand animal welfare primarily in terms of 'natural living' (Lund
et
al
.
2002, 2004b).
In the organic view, natural living is assigned a value in itself, and the fulfilment of the
animals' natures ranks higher than the absence of pain and suffering. Natural living is consid-
ered not only as an instrument but also to have inherent value. As an instrumental value, it
would be preferred only in as much as it would make the animal feel better or become health-
ier. Allowing animals a natural life is considered positive in itself, so that some negative experi-
ences for the individual may be tolerated to achieve the positive. To an extent, negative
experiences are perceived as a natural part of life that can never be completely removed from
an individual animal's spectrum of experiences (Alrøe
et
al
. 2001, Lund and Röcklinsberg
2001, Lund
et
al
. 2004b). This does not imply that such experiences are not negative for the
individual as they happen, but rather that they are an important part of the functional feedback
system connecting individual behaviour and the surrounding world (Lund 2002). This
approach is also discussed by Vaarst
et
al
. (2000), who argue that although 'a natural life' does
not guarantee the absence of pain, frustration and discomfort, contact with nature may add
certain favourable qualities to the life of an animal, the implications of which are not always
measurable. Vaarst
et
al
. (2000) prefer to talk about 'valuable experience' and 'a good life'
rather than animal welfare:
A valuable experience may (but not necessarily) contain elements that seem to have
a short-term negative impact on the individual, but it nevertheless makes the
individual learn something that is of longer term value.
If this approach is further developed, different kinds of negative experiences may be valued
differently. For example, many of the welfare challenges in contemporary farming occur either
