ABSTRACT
Structural transformation, food safety, and environmental risks pose challenges to livestock producers. Adjustments to livestock production systems to improve animal welfare will be made in an economic and political milieu characterized by these challenges. This chapter examines the social, economic, and environmental parameters under which problems and deficiencies in nonhuman animal welfare must be addressed. It compares and contrasts two overarching ways to conceptualize the competing issues and challenges that affect livestock production: industrial versus postindustrial society. In the postindustrial risk society, private and public decision making are shaped by a heightened sense of being at risk from the actions of others and a greater willingness for citizens to mobilize politically around issues of risk. The chapter illustrates how these two competing ways frame and interpret problems in livestock production—especially including animal welfare. Animal production has been linked to a number of contentious environmental issues including soil erosion, the production of global greenhouse gases, and the devastation of tropical rainforests.
