Christian Ethics of Farmed Animal Welfare

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This project addresses an urgent issue that has profound effects on humans, animals, and the wider environment, and in which there is high public interest in the UK. The raising of farmed animals is a major global enterprise with massive impacts on domestic and wild animals, human food and water security, human health, and the environment. In 2013, 77 billion birds and mammals and around 6 trillion fish were used for human food globally, using 78% of available agricultural land, consuming 35% of global cereal output, resulting in more greenhouse gas emissions than those from transport globally, and contributing to a wide range of human health problems including antibiotic resistance, zoonotic diseases such as bird and swine flu, and increased incidence of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and stroke from the associated increase in meat consumption. The raising of farmed animals has grown markedly since the mid-20th century, primarily as a result of a revolutionary intensification of production methods. Poultry consumption has increased at three times that of human population growth in each of the past five decades and a 73% rise in demand for meat from 2010 levels is expected by 2050. Progressive intensification in the rearing of farmed animals, high and rising public concern about farmed animal welfare, and uncertainty about UK farmed animal welfare standards post-Brexit make this project timely.Churches and other Christian organizations in the UK have significant interests in and influence over animal farming in the UK, through ownership of agricultural land, investments in food producers and retailers, participation in policy debates, and consumption of animal products, and will therefore play an important role in public debates about farmed animal welfare. It is striking, therefore, that they currently have no policies concerning farmed animal welfare. This project will produce the first substantive academic discussion of the Christian ethics of farmed animal welfare and, by working with national churches and other organizational partners, will resource the development of new policy and influence institutional practice concerning the raising of farmed animals and consumption of products derived from them. It will also provide a new model of how to engage religious groups and other groups with particular commitments and concerns with the ethical implications of new scientific knowledge and its implications for practice.The project will use a collaborative research process between an interdisciplinary research team and institutional partners which will result in (1) a framework for institutional policy and practice; (2) a process for engaging institutions with that framework to enable development of policy and changes in practice; (3) the first academic monograph in the field and related journal outputs. The partners committed to this project are major Christian denominations representing the majority of the Christians in the UK (Church of England, Roman Catholic Church, Church of Scotland, Church in Wales, Methodist Church, and United Reformed Church), the globally leading charity addressing farmed animal welfare (Compassion in World Farming), groups representing farmers and veterinarians, and Christian animals organizations. The range of this collaboration and its potential influence to improve welfare outcomes is remarkable and unprecedented. The project will enable institutional changes in practice that will have substantial implications for farmed animal welfare and a resulting impact on human well-being and the environment. These changes will be enabled through a process that draws on graphic illustrators, a performance artist, and change facilitators, to help institutions appreciate the need for change and the route to achieve it. Beyond the funded period, new institutions will be engaged, and a planned successor project in the US will build on this one to generate even greater impacts.