Animal Welfare Activists

Animals will do better under a reformed CAP.

• Market intervention, such as export subsidies and tariffs, raise the price of meat and dairy products. The removal of these interventions will reduce prices and thus make intensive livestock farming less attractive.
• Some subsidies remain that reward livestock ‘production’ per ‘unit’ – namely premia for sheeps and goats, suckler cows, and slaughter. This is another incentive for intensive livestock farming that should be removed.
• More funds could be dedicated to targeted payments that reward animal friendly farming practices. For the time being, the animal welfare conditions of the Single Farm Payment are weak and member states offer few targeted animal welfare payments.
• The focus on environmental protection of a reformed CAP will have positive side effects for animals. Tying subsidies more strongly to maximum stocking rates of livestock per hectare and to responsible manure management will benefit extensive grazing at the expense of intensive livestock farming. Greater support to organic farming will also benefit farm animals.
• Another positive side effect of a pro-environmental turn of the CAP will be the protection of biodiversity. Especially birds nesting in fields could be much better protected. Even broader will be the benefits when farmers use fewer fertilizers and pesticides. This will protect the butterflies and birds on the fields but also the fish in faraway rivers, lakes and seas.

Respectful treatment of animals is not an option that farmers can choose in order to earn some extra subsidies – or prefer to ignore. Animal welfare will therefore not become the centerpiece of future agricultural subsidies. Respectful treatment of animals is an obligation that must be assured through binding EU legislation. While binding minimum standards thus come first, subsidies also have a role to play: reform of the CAP payments must enhance animal welfare by abolishing misleading incentives and by promoting animal-friendly farming.