Page 138 - The Welfare of Cattle

CattLe haVe a reasonabLY Good LIfe 115

and promote the welfare of farmed animals. In 2004, a congressional report by the U.S. General
Accounting Office found that the USDA failed to provide consistent criteria for enforcement of the
HMSA including incomplete or inconsistent records, enforcement, and reporting (GAO, 2004). A
follow-up report in 2010 by the US General Accounting Office in 2010 again stated that USDA
inspectors were still not taking consistent action to enforce the HMSA (GAO, 2010).
Given the apparent failure of enforcing HMSA in the years since its inception the question
arises as to whether the welfare of animals during slaughter has improved? The original 1991 audit
commissioned by McDonalds Inc. is now known as the North American Meat Institute (NAMI,
2013) audit and since 2001 the major US chain restaurants have implemented mandatory third-party
audits of all slaughter houses in their supply chain—a market-driven demand that was effective in
reducing the failure rate of effective stunning to from 64% in 1996 to 3.6% in 2011 (Grandin, 2011).
To understand how this success was achieved, we must understand how market mandates work
and in the case of farm animal welfare what motivates corporations to look for assurances that the
standards of animal welfare are sufficient and above all, what makes a good third-party audit.

audit Certification

In 2016, the National Cattle Feeders Association of Canada developed the Canadian feedlot
Animal Care Assessment program with the input of feedlot producers, processors, retailers,
feedlot veterinarians, the SPCA, and animal-welfare specialists from government and industry.
Unlike the DFC stewarded Animal Care module of Pro-action and the US based F.A.R.M. pro-
grams, the Canadian Feedlot program is certified by the Professional Animal Auditors Certification
Organization (PAACO). PAACO is a nonprofit organization that certifies animal-welfare audits
based on established criteria and trains auditors in an effort to establish a qualified and consistent
auditing resource. The key attributes of a PAACO-certified audit is that the audit requirements
must be auditable (measurable and verifiable), with the intent that the audit results in improved
animal welfare. Prospective audits submitted to PAACO are sent for peer review with recommenda-
tions sent back for consideration prior to the final document being reviewed by the PAACO board.
Any audit that is PAACO approved must also provide sample methodology sufficient to provide an
adequate representation of the animals on the operation.

Who Sets the Standards that are Used in the audit?

Regardless of the audit or industry-led initiative most programs should be written with the input
of scientists who have an established expertise in the welfare of the species of interest. However,
while science can describe what is possible on farms it does not determine what society believes
what farms “ought” to do—standards that resonate with societal values will no doubt be more
sustainable in the long run (Weary et al., 2016).
As food animal agriculture has not historically required adherence to animal-welfare standards
(Fraser, 2008), corporations in the food service and food retailer space have become increasingly
involved in mandating improvements in animal welfare (Brown and Hollingsworth, 2005). They
have done so by including animal-welfare-specific requirements into their supplier agreements and
more and more frequently auditing against a standard (Sorensen and Fraser, 2010). When it comes
to business or nongovernmental mandates focused on animal welfare the fundamental motivations,
each of which are not necessarily mutually exclusive, can be described as being approached from
the following perspectives: risk mitigation, potential for developing possible market advantages and
improving animal welfare.
At a minimum, business and corporations are wanting to mitigate risk by providing their
consumers assurance that animals raised for food that enter their supply chain are treated humanely,
as the risk of being associated with a supplier farm accused of animal cruelty, neglect or poor