ABSTRACT

The first step in developing ethical, sustainable and compassionate food policies is to acknowledge that we need them. The outcome of millions of consumer choices, made in a socio-economic context in which, for various reasons and in various ways, meat eating is encouraged, advertised and advocated, has led to a situation in which meat production and consumption in its current form is a major contributor to a suite of serious problems. Climate change, for all its seriousness, is not the only critical environmental issue we face. Human encroachment on habitat, not least for agriculture, is contributing to 'the sixth great extinction', with the United Nations, amongst others, stating that the mid- to long-term survival is now genuinely in doubt because of the impact of the way people acquire their resources on biodiversity and ecological systems. High standards of animal welfare are, or should be, a core value of food animal production.