Dramatic reductions in animal rearing and consumption
Shifting production to better respect animal welfare means lower levels of production, from both lower yields per animal unit, and reduced stocking rates. This in turn requires changes to production models, structures and feeding regimes. Animals are more likely to spend their lives on one farm, significantly reducing movement and associated health problems. Canada would send fewer piglets to the US. The number and scale of beef backgrounding and feedlot operations would be reduced. There would be fewer specialized breeding operations. All this also has cost and price implications though only a limited amount of modelling work has been undertaken (cf. Kollenda et al., 2020 on the transition to cage - free farming in the EU). The progress of animal welfare transition is thus intimately linked to sustainability requirements and Demand-supply Co-ordination (see Goal 2, Demand-supply Coordination, Redesign).
