Improving farm animal welfare in the UK
The Farm Animal Welfare Forum (FAWF) brings together a group of influential organisations concerned with improving farm animal welfare.
The organisations involved include the University of Bristol's Animal Welfare and Behaviour Group, the British Veterinary Association, Compassion in World Farming, the Food Animal Initiative, the Royal Agricultural University, RSPCA, the Soil Association, and World Animal Protection.
Taking the internationally accepted Five Freedoms as our guide, we have identified the most pressing animal welfare issues and developed high-level strategies for addressing them. We believe we can do most to improve the welfare of animals by working collaboratively towards shared strategic objectives.
As our proposed improvements must be economically viable for farmers and businesses in the food supply chain, the Forum includes leading representatives from the voluntary sector, food and farming industries. We also cooperate with other organisations concerned with farm animal welfare that support our analysis and want to work with us to achieve our objectives.
The Forum is chaired by Dr Annie Rayner and administered by Jo Hastie.
Payments for public goods
In 2021, FAWF prepared a series of proposals to realign public subsidies for farming and to bring about a higher welfare, higher value market where British farming will be able to secure a distinctive market position outside of the EU.
In 2022, we wrote to Defra welcoming the subsequent announcement of species-specific priorities for the Animal Health and Welfare Pathway and outlining our view on opportunities for the government to support industry and NGO efforts for animal welfare and environmental labelling. Below you can read our letter and the reply, detailing Defra’s commitment to ongoing engagement on these issues.
