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I am a monster, and so are millions of Americans who hunt, fish, and raise livestock. At least that's the argument by Matthew Scully, a former literary editor of National Review, who took to these pages to present the case for the abolishment of animal cruelty. It turns out that to Scully, animal cruelty is a broad term, encompassing everything from consuming meat raised via large-scale agriculture to hunting. In Scully's eyes, harvesting a whitetail buck or taking your daily limit of pintail ducks isn't "normal" or "praiseworthy," even if you donate that meat to your local food bank. Apparently all hunters are merely twisted psychopaths who take to the woods every year "for no better reason than the malicious thrill of it." And don't think you're more moral than those wicked hunters, for, as Scully says, "cruelty to farm animals is the beam in our own eye, if we patronize that whole rotten system." If you're eating meat, apparently, you're a monster.

Scully's moral argument against meat eating sounds great, as long as you don't think about the mice, rabbits, squirrels, moles, groundhogs, and other creatures great and small killed by the combines in the cornfields and green spaces where our vegetables are grown. Anybody who lives in the country has seen turkey vultures circling and swooping down on the fields where the cornstalks have been reduced to stubble, or the murders of crows that gather to slowly hop and pick their way across the earth, taking sustenance in the animals killed in the raising of vegetables. There's a hard truth in life that many of us either don't think about or choose to ignore: We all eat to survive, and that means that something had to die in order for you to live. Chances are, even if you're the most committed vegan you know, animals died in the making of your last, and next, meal.

Knowing this and recognizing this doesn't make you a monster. It makes you mature. It gives you a greater understanding of your place in the world, and the responsibilities we all have to treat the creatures we eat with care and concern. Yes, we should be concerned about wanton cruelty to animals. We should actively work to stop it where we find it. But we shouldn't define animal cruelty down to the point that eating free-range chicken is comparable to mass murder, nor should we casually condemn millions of Americans for being "trophy hunters" without considering the benefit that their hunting provides.

Hunting is conservation, and beyond the economic impact in rural areas around the globe provided by hunters, local communities benefit from the meat that is harvested, research dollars are raised to help protect species, and wildlife populations are treated as valuable renewable resources worthy of management and protection. The Dallas Safari Club, for example, is a part of the United Nations' International Union for Conservation of Nature, while the Safari Club International Foundation has spent $60 million since 2000 on conservation projects and education in 27 countries. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, and the National Wild Turkey Federation, among other groups, have purchased tens of thousands of acres of land to protect habitat, restored wetlands and forests, and even reintroduced species into spaces where they once roamed and grazed.

Like most Americans, I grew up not really knowing where my food came from. My grandparents all raised at least some of their own food; on my mom's side as dirt-poor farmers in Dust Bowl-era Oklahoma, and on my dad's side as inhabitants of a small town in Massachusetts. But my parents moved away from the countryside, and by the time I was raised in the outer suburbs of Oklahoma City, the thought of keeping chickens or heading out to a tree stand on the first day of deer season seemed like a relic of their past.

As I grew older, I became fascinated with America's countryside. I read and reread Jesse Stuart's Beyond Dark Hills and Whittaker Chambers's Witness and Cold Friday (it's worth noting that most of Chambers' contributions to National Review were penned while he was a working farmer in western Maryland), soaking in the details of rural life and farming during the first half of the 20th century. I had a romanticized view of agriculture, to be sure, but I didn't realize that until a few years ago, when our family had found a small farm to call our own. Since then, I've become acquainted with cattle farmers who work the same hundreds of acres that their great-great-great-great grandparents did in the 19th century, as well as newcomers who are raising goats, hogs, and sheep on just a few small acres. I've met families who contract out with one of the big poultry processors to raise 30,000 chickens at a time, as well as plenty of folks who have just enough chickens to supply eggs for the breakfast table. I've met men and women who live to hunt, as well as those who do, in fact, hunt to live. The one person I haven't met is the one who doesn't give a damn about the animals under their care or in the wild spaces where they live.

As an example, consider what happened to me a couple of weeks ago, on a cold Saturday afternoon. I was giving our hogs some fresh water when our young boar wandered over. Immediately I could tell something was wrong because he was shivering, and despite the cold wind, none of his companions seemed bothered in the slightest. When he turned around, I winced as I saw a portion of his intestine, about the size and color of a ripe plumb, hanging out of his rear end. I quickly called our vet and left a message, and began looking up "rectal prolapse in hogs" on Google. The diagnosis wasn't good, and was confirmed a few minutes later when the vet called me back. The boar had to be put down. My heart sank as I walked inside the house and loaded a .22 pistol. I wasn't excited or happy about what I had to do, and I certainly didn't take any sadistic joy at what was in store. But I walked back outside, aimed the gun at the space between the back of the boar's ear and his skull, and pulled the trigger. He dropped immediately, twitching on the cold earth. I knelt beside him, murmuring softly and stroking his rough, bristly fur as the life passed out of him. I took no pleasure in his death, but I shed no tears. When the last breath escaped his lungs, I took the carcass over to a table and, with the help of a friend who volunteered to help, began to process the meat for our freezer.

We shouldn't define animal cruelty down to the point that eating free-range chicken is comparable to mass murder.

Was it cruel to kill that hog? Or would it have been crueler to let nature take its course? What would have happened if I hadn't pulled the trigger? In nature, his fellow pigs would have eventually smelled the blood trickling out of his anus and would have eaten him. Pigs have no compunction against cannibalism, because they're pigs. They don't know any better. But it still seems like a pretty cruel way to die.

Scully's ultimate argument, I suppose, would be that I never should have had that boar to begin with. I can't agree. In the seven months or so that the young Ossabaw boar walked the earth, he lived a good life. He had plenty of green pasture to eat, a constant source of fresh water, a plethora of lovely and delectable sows to mate with, and more. He got to experience summer sunrises and the taste of morning dew on fields of clover and moonlit nights where crickets and bullfrogs lulled him to sleep. For those of us that believe life is precious, that's worth something. The goal shouldn't be to eradicate meat from our diets, it should be to strive to make that life possible for as many animals as possible, including those that end up on our plates.

I recognize that's also not the experience of most hogs raised on large-scale industrial farms, and I agree with Scully that looking at animals as nothing more than commodities is bad for the soul. But those who are morally opposed to eating meat don't seem that interested in improving standards. Scully believes that even with better standards for large-scale farming, "we are only refining practices that are better abolished. One day, as Charles Krauthammer predicts, humanity will be done altogether with feeding on animals, for reasons of ethics along with the health and ecological reasons that are also staring us in the face."

Scully implies that he would really like our meat-raising and meat-eating ways to disappear; from the vast hog lots in the Midwest to the small farms in central Virginia where I live. That vision would mean the eradication not just of massive chicken processing plants but also hundreds of varieties of heritage breeds of chicken, cattle, hogs, and other livestock. If we're not eating these animals, after all, there's no reason for them to exist. Farmers aren't going to make a living by running petting zoos. Those animals currently living will be slaughtered, and no offspring will replace them. Tens of thousands of Americans would need to find new employment, have to leave their family farms, and change their way of life. Oh, and it would require massive government regulation and intervention to enact these changes.

My friend Trent Marsh, who lives, hunts, farms, and writes in rural Indiana, thinks that Scully's argument may make sense from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, or among those Americans who only view animals as a commodity, but it's different for those raising and hunting these animals. To those Americans, these creatures aren't abstract ideas or data points. "To the farmer the hog is a partner, both in life and death," Marsh told me. "For the hunter, the hunted is the embodiment of the wild they seek to protect. These aren't lives that can be read about in books. They can't be studied, or made into role-player games for the masses to enjoy. These lives are earned through nights spent tending a laboring sow, or moving a herd of cattle into safer pastures ahead of a blizzard. Because for the farmer, large or small, reliance is a two-way street."

There's nothing morally wrong with eating meat. But we do owe it to ourselves, and to the animals under our care, to treat them with respect.

There's nothing morally wrong with eating meat. But we do owe it to ourselves, and to the animals under our care, to treat them with respect. Fortunately, it can be done. Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms has been providing a good life for his farm animals as well as a producing a steady paycheck to support his family, and more and more farmers are starting to look at rotational grazing and other practices that will allow a better life for all the creatures on the farm, humans and livestock alike. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 75 percent of the nation's 2.1 million farms are considered "small" in terms of annual sales. Those small farmers can and should be a driving force in adopting practices that allow for a better life for livestock. I would rather support them than try and drive them out of business.

Perhaps it's possible that one day we'll all eat meat grown in labs and vegetables grown in hydroponic indoor farms in Brooklyn. Maybe one day the guns of hunters will fall silent across the country, and they'll learn to love quinoa loaf instead of venison backstrap. Would that make life less cruel for the animals in the wild? Would the coyotes and the bobcats suddenly lie down with the mule deer and the rabbits? Of course not, but maybe that's not Scully's intent. Maybe it's really about how vegans feel about their fellow humans, and if we're treating animals by the rules they want to apply to society, they'll feel better about their fellow men. Perhaps they even believe that they can make humankind less cruel if we would all replace our Christmas hams with a PETA-approved wheat-gluten loaf (yes, the recipe exists, and no, I won't link to it or recommend you try eating it).

Here's the thing: I don't believe it would make humankind any less capable of cruelty if we were to stop eating meat. Besides the fact that most of us would be really cranky from the lack of bacon in our diet, we would simply be even more removed from that most basic fact of nature; something has to die in order for us to live. We would be more removed from a fact of civilization, as well: experience is the best teacher. We need more Americans to know what their food looks like before it ends up shrink-wrapped and packaged on a grocery-store shelf. If we want others to treat the animals we eat with more care, we need to find ways to get closer to our food, not farther away from it.

- Cam Edwards is the host of Cam & Co. on NRATV.com, and the co-author, with Jim Geraghty, of Heavy Lifting: Grow Up, Get a Job, Start a Family, and Other Manly Advice.

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In Defense of Farmers, Hunters, and Meat-Eaters

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I am a monster, and so are millions of Americans who hunt, fish, and raise livestock. At least that's the argument by Matthew Scully, a former literary editor of National Review, who took to these pages to present the case for the abolishment of animal cruelty.

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Gina Williams' family has owned the Waikato dairy farm she grew up on for generations, and today they still tend the land with pride. She writes about the other side of the dairy industry, where care for animals and the environment remains paramount.
Earlier this month, the current affairs show Sunday aired a segment called The Price of Milk. It outraged a lot of people, especially in the farming community, and for days after the show's Facebook page was swarming. If you didn't catch it, a lot of the shock was around the treatment of animals and the environment - building on the last few years of negative sentiment. It felt like a jolt. My family have lived on the same piece of rolling land in the Waikato for four generations. I went to school with our neighbour, my dad with his dad and my nana with his grandma. My great grandfather settled there just after WW1 along with his brother. Work took grit and guts and everything was a community effort, because it had to be.

The real farmer I know is different to the one you see in advertising, or in the news. She or he is irrepressible, clever, creative, resilient and looks to tomorrow. There are good farmers out there making a difference. I know firsthand that many farmers love their land and their animals. It's hard not to when your life is the farm and the farm, yours - even if only for a short while. You can't help but be connected to the land. We're lucky that in our little district most farms are still owned by families, but I think we're standing on the precipice of change. There aren't a lot from my generation who have made farming their future.

The dairy industry is not set up to support medium-sized businesses like ours any more. In response to market demands over the past couple of decades there's been an increased emphasis, by the agriculture industry and government, on intensive, industrial-style, corporate dairy, in an effort to increase production. It's the government's goal to double the value of primary sector exports by 2025. With dairy being the biggest contributor to the sector, growth will need to come mostly from dairy. It won't be done by adding value alone - volume will need to increase. Then there's the increasing downward pressure on prices from consumers upset about the price of cheese. As with anything, when the pressure comes on some things will have to give and shortcuts will need to be made.

A lot of recent dairying development has occurred on land that's not naturally fertile - farms that have been converted from sheep, beef and forestry blocks. The land is steep, dry and requires a lot of fertiliser and water irrigation from nearby rivers and springs. The soil is porous, which means it doesn't hold nutrients well. Nitrates can easily pass through and into springs and waterways. With this style of farming, everything about it is big. The farms are big, the cash required is big, the supplementary feed is big, the stocking rates are big, the production, big. But, all of this comes at a cost to the land, the animals and the people.

There's been a counter-movement globally and people are becoming aware that their food system is broken. The industrial method isn't sustainable. New Zealand is a small cluster of islands, known for the catchphrase we love to band about: clean and green. We should be making it easy for New Zealand farmers to produce quality, grass-fed milk that fetches a high price for all the hard work farmers put in. It's not only our heritage as a nation, it's our competitive advantage.

Today, our own farm is certified organic and uses robotic technology, but we choose to farm using a 'best tools for the job' approach. Solutions can come from anywhere and it's crucial to keep an open mind for new ideas to try and tinker with. There's never been a more important time to apply our creativity to solve the problems that face our environment, our communities and our economy. Dairying needs the best of us and we need smart New Zealanders from all backgrounds to get in and be heard.

Our waterways and wetlands have become a key election issue. When you take a look at the science, it's not hard to see why New Zealanders are concerned about our waterways and the impact dairying in particular has had on them. As the March 2017 OECD environmental performance report puts it, "New Zealand's growth model (based on the exports of primary products), however, has started to show its environmental limits, with GHG emissions, freshwater contamination and threats to biodiversity." As New Zealanders, our relationship with the land runs deep. No matter what side of the political spectrum you're on, it's part of our cultural DNA to protect and defend it. At all costs.

Today most dairy farmers have fenced off their waterways from stock. But there's even more value in extending these areas and restoring the wetland core and riparian areas - getting them acting like 'kidneys' again. On our farm, over the past few years we've worked with partners to restore approximately seven hectares of streams and springs back into native wetland. The early weeks of the new year saw us carrying out earthworks to create two wetland treatment weirs. Weirs are like sieves, helping to reduce the amount of impurities that leave the farm. Monitoring the difference in water quality is simple, with a yearly sample that gets sent to a laboratory. Planting the marginal land doesn't just help with biodiversity, it helps with economic diversity, by creating the perfect environment for bees.

Over time, Mum and Dad have developed an organic, polyculture pasture that's suited to our land. This pasture has colour, depth, texture and is constantly changing. After all, dairy farming for a long time has been about the pasture. A diverse pasture benefits cow health and milk production, improves the soil and decreases nitrate leaching - which improves water quality, as plants with deeper roots capture more carbon and nitrogen. Because we farm organically, we don't add nitrogen fertiliser.

"After many years of being biological we decided to take the next step," Mum tells me when I ask her why she and Dad made the switch to organic. "Our experience has shown us that the organic model has people, land and animals at the heart. To have things in balance is important, especially the soil."

Being open to and embracing new technology possibilities will be a fundamental part of dairy's future. For the past two years, robots have milked our cows and the data helps us be proactive and to make better decisions - especially around animal health. Both Mum and Dad manage animal welfare on the farm and Dad likes to tell people about the change he's seen in the cows since switching from manual milking. "Even though cows have a herd mentality, our cows aren't herded," he says. "They come to the shed when they want to, which is usually two or three times a day. They get to spend time with the cows they like spending time with and they express their natural personalities, because they're free to come and go as they please. They're relaxed and happy. On the way out, they get to enjoy a good scratch with a mechanised brush."

It's taken 34 years for Mum and Dad to get the farm to where it is today. Just about every day of the year they're still out there, working as hard as they were in their twenties to make the farm as good as it can be. Some days are so hard, you can't see beyond today. But for dairy farming to be good for all of us, we need good farmers who have their eyes on tomorrow and acknowledge their place as a brief custodian. Corporate dairy is consumed with the profit and loss of today. Good farmers have their eye on the economics, but also on doing right by the community and the environment. We need to take care of this land, because we don't leave after the work's done - it's home. This land is everything.

On Sunday, I watched a hawk swoop in and out of some trees we'd planted. Our pockets were heavy and lumpy with hundreds of manuka seeds from the morning's collection. After a chat around the table over some tea, we decided to start raising our own plants to create hedges. A pasture pest called yellow bristle grass has recently become a big risk and after talking to a scientist, it seems like an idea worth trying out.
Gina Williams lives in two worlds. By day she's an Auckland advertising strategist. By night and at the weekends, a fourth generation, Waikato dairy farmer and fledgeling beekeeper. Her blog, ourlandofmilkandhoney.com has her family farm's full story. The Society section is sponsored by AUT. As a contemporary university we're focused on providing exceptional learning experiences, developing impactful research and forging strong industry partnerships. Start your university journey with us today.
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The Good Farmer: in defence of (non-industrial) dairying

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Gina Williams' family has owned the Waikato dairy farm she grew up on for generations, and today they still tend the land with pride. She writes about the other side of the dairy industry, where care for animals and the environment remains paramount.

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In 2001 my family left the dairy industry for good. It had been a long, drawn out decline, brought about by struggling milk prices, unsustainable labour costs and the fluctuant nature of the pedigree sales part of the business. We continued in farming, but the business is now unrecognisable compared with when there were cows in the yard.

All farm businesses face their own peculiar challenges and most are occasionally demonised in the press, whether that is for applying supposedly carcinogenic glyphosate on arable fields or being told they are irresponsible destroyers of wildlife for cutting hedges in August.

Of any sector of the farming industry, dairy farmers seem to be particularly downtrodden at the moment, with views increasingly polarised when it comes to the virtues of milk. What used to be seen as a valuable health product has in the past few years regularly been available at a price cheaper than bottled water, and with 46% of 16 to 24-year-olds saying they are allergic to cow's milk. I therefore write this article not as a dairy farmer defending my own industry, but as someone with a deep concern for how dairy farming is being portrayed.

Despite what you might read, the vast majority of dairy farm businesses in the UK produce a high-quality product while ensuring their cows live healthy and happy lives. From micro-dairies with a few head of cattle to zero-grazing herds of over 1,000 cows, all dairy businesses have similar aims: they want to produce a quality product for consumers; they want to maintain good animal welfare standards and herd health to ensure the cows are happy, therefore producing more milk; and they want to make sufficient profit to keep rural people employed and stay in business the following year.

Of course, there are always going to be exceptions, and occasionally there are examples of poor practice, which let the rest of the farming community down. However, we need to shift the narrative so that we focus more on those farmers (the vast majority) who are producing milk safely and with high standards of animal welfare and less on the doom and gloom message of the fictional dairy monster espoused by some in the vegan lobby.

There are many examples of farmers across the UK taking things into their own hands to tell people what they are doing and why. Leaf's Open Farm Sunday, which takes place each June, gives people the opportunity to visit farmers and learn about food production first hand. Further, hundreds of farmers are active on social media with various tweeting tractor drivers, shepherds and herdsmen forming their own online communities and posting about everyday life on their farms. There are also farming blogs, and even a few podcasts, profiling agricultural life.

If you want the true picture (or should I say pictures) of dairy farming, take a look at these. The trouble is that these messages only reach a small minority of consumers.

Too few people have direct experience of the way milk is produced, and even fewer regularly talk to farmers - so it's no surprise that negative views are able to flourish. Distance creates distrust, which generates angst. It is good and healthy to question how and why certain things are done, but when forming opinions they should be based on objective appraisals of the issue, rather than how it might seem, or the rare instances of bad practice. Exposés may make for strong news items, but they don't reflect the wider industry.

In recent years, milk prices have regularly appeared in the news. Financial worries are never far from a dairy farmer's mind. As a farmer of any commodity you have very little to no control over the price you are paid for your product. The best you can do is increase efficiency by reducing inputs or invest in new equipment and technology to increase unit yields.

Some dairy farmers have chosen to sell direct, produce "raw" unpasteurised milk, or process their milk into cheese or ice cream. However, the vast majority sell their milk through one of the cooperatives, taking the marketing out of their hands, leaving them to concentrate on production, hoping prices will rise.

There are now fewer than 9,500 dairy farms in the UK compared with 13,000 10 years ago, and it has been predicted there will be fewer than 5,000 by 2025. Low milk prices threaten the livelihoods of dairy farming families and, with it, the rural communities of which they are apart. Each dairy farm that goes out of business makes life in another community a little poorer - economically, socially and culturally.

We have become addicted to cheap food and too many in society take our farmers for granted. The government rhetoric surrounding Brexit - that we can import cheap food from abroad - is incompatible with supporting farmers at home who work tirelessly to produce food to the highest standards. After all, we are subject to far more legislation than producers abroad - while also providing various environmental benefits.

"Farmer bashing" has become an acceptable pastime. Instead, I urge everyone to explore the various farming blogs out there to read from farmers themselves about what they are doing. By all means challenge them, but be prepared to take part in a rational debate about food production. Trust me, other than the action of farming itself, farmers like nothing more than to talk about their work; they would just like to be engaged in the conversation before they are demonised.

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Times are tough for dairy farmers. We must stop demonising them | Ben Eagle

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In 2001 my family left the dairy industry for good. It had been a long, drawn out decline, brought about by struggling milk prices, unsustainable labour costs and the fluctuant nature of the pedigree sales part of the business. We continued in farming, but the business is now unrecognisable compared with when there were cows in the yard.

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Chicken Farmers of Canada has hit back at an anti-animal agriculture group's "outrageous and unsubstantiated claims" about brutal practices on poultry farms across the country.

At issue is a video distributed by Mercy for Animals, a U.S.-based group that purports to show abuse on chicken on Canadian farms.

"We believe that this video footage isn't from a Canadian chicken farm and appears to be recycled from previous propaganda campaigns that have taken place in other countries," says CFC chairman Benoit Fontaine. "Canada's chicken farmers are appalled by the inaccurate and irresponsible portrayal of Canadian chicken production that is being used to target retail and food-service companies."

Mercy and other groups opposed to animal agriculture practices have been using questionable information to fuel their campaigns and push an agenda to eliminate animal agriculture and shutter Canadian farms, he said. "These tactics are shameful, inaccurate, deliberately misleading, and undermine the hard work and animal welfare standards of local Canadian farmers throughout the country," Fontaine said.

Meanwhile Mercy attacked a newly released Care Code for laying hens because it doesn't immediately phase out battery cages. It accused the National Farmed Animal Care Council for flagrantly disregarding the interests of Canadian taxpayers, consumers, grocers, and food producers, who all agreed to eliminate cruel cages years ago in developing the code.

It said its undercover investigations found abuse of laying hens at factory farms across Canada, "such as Kuku Farms and Creekside Farms - suppliers to Burnbrae Farms - and Gray Ridge Farms. Confining hens in cages is one of the cruelest forms of institutionalized animal abuse in existence. Responding to caring consumers, nearly every major Canadian food company, including Tim Hortons, McDonald's, Loblaw, Metro, Sobeys, and Walmart, has recently pledged to switch to cage-free eggs."

Egg Farmers of Canada didn't respond directly to the charges.

However, Barbara Cartwright, CEO of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies, which participated in the development of the Care Codes, said the cages are being phased out under the new Care Code.

"Barren battery cages will be a thing of the past," she said. "We're relieved to see the tide turning on these practices even though the timeline is much longer than we'd like. But the change is actually starting right now - not in 15 years. With every year that passes, fewer and fewer hens will be in these cramped, inhumane cages."

The current date for completing the phase-out is 2036.

"The new code provides progressive standards for hen welfare in Canada," said poultry welfare expert Dr. Ian Duncan, who is representing the Federation of Humane Societies in its development. "We worked diligently for almost four years to secure these important new welfare commitments."

EFC chairman Roger Pelissero said, "Canada's more than 1,000 egg farmers are deeply committed to and strive for continuous improvements when it comes to the care and well-being of their hens." The new code will "serve as a key building block to our national Animal Care Program."

Chicken Farmers administers its Care Code through a mandatory, third-party-audited Animal Care Program across all 2,800 chicken farms in Canada.

"Canadian chicken farms are run by hard-working men and women who take to heart their responsibility to uphold animal health and welfare on their farm and share Canadian values," Fontaine said. "They are proud ambassadors in promoting and defending their good management practices, and believe that there is no defence for the mistreatment of birds."

About 90 per cent of Canada's chicken farms are family owned and operated and as they're only paid for every bird that goes to a processor, it's good economic sense to care for their birds, CFC said.

"If birds were treated in the ways described by activists, it would result in significant economic losses to the farmer," CFC said. "The chickens are not caged and are raised without the use of steroids or hormones. The number of chicks placed in the barn is predetermined to ensure that density limits are not surpassed and as they age they continue to have room to roam.

"Chicken health is continually improving. Bird mortality, condemnations, lameness, and ascites have decreased significantly over the past decades."

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Activist misrepresentations slammed by chicken farmers - Manitoba Co-operator

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Chicken Farmers of Canada has hit back at an anti-animal agriculture group's "outrageous and unsubstantiated claims" about brutal practices on poultry farms across the country.

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Together with the Vermont Law School's Center for Agriculture and Food Systems, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) recently released a new tool for farmers hoping to adapt or learn more about animal welfare certifications: the Farm Animal Welfare Certification Guide .

The guide helps farmers, food companies, restaurant owners, and chefs sourcing animal products understand the three most significant welfare certification programs: Animal Welfare Approved, Certified Humane®, and Global Animal Partnership. The guide compares the processes and standards required by each program, presents six candid farmer case studies, and outlines the funding options available to farmers who are investing in animal welfare.

Food Tank had the opportunity to speak with Kara Shannon, the manager of the Farm Animal Welfare program, about the guide and how the certifications described a triple-win solution for farmers, animals, and consumers.

FT: The Farm Animal Welfare Certification Guide has three different certifications: Animal Welfare Approved, Certified Humane, and Global Animal Partnership. Which certificate is the most popular among farmers versus consumers, and why? If the popularity is different between farmers and consumers, why do you think there are differences?
KS: The three certifications covered in the guide represent a spectrum of higher-welfare ways to raise farm animals, from indoor-enriched systems to outdoor, pasture-based systems. Welfare certification is a small but growing section of the marketplace. At this point, the popularity of a certification with a consumer or farmer mostly has to do with availability at retail and suitability for a particular farm operation.

Generally, Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) farmers tend to sell their products direct to consumer, on a farm, at farmers markets, or through CSAs. Accordingly, you're likely to find AWA products in smaller co-ops or specialty grocery stores. Certified Humane (CH), on the other hand, is more widely available in major retail stores and therefore sometimes more easily recognized by consumers who have seen CH products in the store before. Similarly, the Global Animal Partnership (GAP) program is more readily understood by consumers who regularly shop at Whole Foods because of Whole Foods' sourcing policy which requires meat producers to be GAP-certified.

All three certifications continue to add more farms and animals to their program every year, so it's safe to say that each is certainly growing in popularity!

FT: What are the greatest benefits farmers will see from one of these certifications?
KS: These certifications can offer farmers, as well as animals and consumers, a lot of benefits. We refer to this in the guide as the "triple-win." Animals win because the certification standards mandate a higher quality of life, allowing animals to carry out natural behaviors free from the cruelest confinement systems found on many conventional farms. Consumers win because they can easily identify welfare-certified products, allowing them to shop in line with their values. For farmers, certification can offer the ability to communicate higher welfare standards in a clear, verifiable manner and enter into a rapidly growing market that offers more dependable, premium prices for their products. We know that consumers are increasingly interested in where their food comes from and are willing to pay more for food that has been welfare-certified. Seventy-four percent of consumers surveyed by the ASPCA are paying more attention to welfare-related labels today than they were just five years ago. We're seeing more companies, food service providers, retailers, and institutions committing to sourcing welfare-certified products, including well-known players like Panera Bread, Sodexo, and Au Bon Pain. Welfare certification gives higher-welfare farmers increased access to these consumers and companies, which can ultimately benefit animals, farmers, and consumers.

FT: What is one of your favorite case studies in the Guide and why?
KS: It's really difficult to pick just one because all the case studies provide a unique look into welfare-certified farming. One common thread we saw running through all the farm stories was how farmers maintain that certification helped them gain access to new markets by formalizing the higher-welfare standards they say they were already using for their animals. Also, when improvements were necessary, farmers maintained that there was a return on that investment. Gabe Clark at Cold Spring Ranch explained that the barrier to certification is often just a lack of "knowledge of opportunities and the potential benefits." Gabe's case study illustrates all the ways he believes attaining GAP Step 4 certification has benefited his farm and his partner farms by creating opportunities and access to new markets that he says offer double-digit premiums. The same theme appeared in many of our other case studies, including Animal Welfare Approved Kinderhook Farm and Certified Humane Pete and Gerry's Ward Family Farm, who both felt that certification ultimately benefitted their farms and their animals.

FT: What advice can you give farmers who are interested in obtaining one of the certifications?
KS: I would suggest that any farmer interested in becoming welfare-certified take the time to carefully review all three certifications to become familiar with the requirements for each and determine which would work best for their animals and their farm. Every farm is unique, and the three certifications in the guide have different standards representing a spectrum of welfare and ultimately offering different market incentives. For example, farmers looking to enter larger markets like Whole Foods may want to look more closely at GAP and Certified Humane since these certifications are more readily available in larger retailers than Animal Welfare Approved. Animal Welfare Approved might be a better fit for small, pasture-based farms wanting to verify their practices and increase their visibility with welfare-conscious consumers. Taking the time to compare the programs and learn from the experiences of other welfare-certified farmers can help farmers figure out which certification may be suitable for their animals and their farm.

FT: What resources are available through the Guide that supports welfare certification transition efforts? KS: The ASPCA wanted this guide to help farmers assess and compare independent welfare certification programs. It provides a side-by-side comparison of certification programs across key administrative criteria as well as standards comparison charts, organized by species, which highlight the range of higher-welfare standards required by the different certifications. Additionally, the case studies illustrate how other farmers have integrated welfare certification into their businesses.

It was also really important to us that the guide not just spells out the key differences and requirements of the three certification programs, but also provide resources to support the efforts of higher welfare farmers who were investing in welfare certification. Accordingly, we included a section that identifies some private organizations that support higher welfare farming and examples of state and federal funding programs that support more sustainable, pasture-based farming systems for which many welfare-certified farmers would likely qualify.

Prior to the release of the guide, the ASPCA gave a grant to the Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT) - one of the funding organizations already listed in the guide - to create a grant program specifically for farmers transitioning to welfare-certified systems. Last month, FACT announced the grant recipients, with nine farms from across the country receiving grants from this new Animal Welfare Certification grant program. We hope that as more people begin to understand the potential value of welfare-certification for animals, farmers, and consumers, we'll see more and more public and private funding being allocated to support higher welfare farmers that choose to become welfare-certified.

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How Three Certifications Lead to a Triple-Win Solution for Farmers, Animals, and Consumers

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Together with the Vermont Law School's Center for Agriculture and Food Systems, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) recently released a new tool for farmers hoping to adapt or learn more about animal welfare certifications: the Farm Animal Welfare Certification Guide .