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Pork chops and eggs labelled ‘Freedom Food’ will soon be on sale in
some of Britain’s leading supermarkets. The scheme, which will be launched
this summer by Britain’s biggest animal welfare charity, aims to give consumers
the option of paying more to buy food produced from contented animals.

But critics claim that the husbandry standards for the scheme have
been set too low. As a result, farmers may be under little pressure to improve
the lot of farm animals.

For its Freedom Food initiative, the Royal Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals will certify that the products bearing its logo have
been humanely produced. The scheme will start with pork and eggs but will
ultimately extend to beef, poultry and dairy products.

The RSPCA hopes to harness consumers’ spending power to benefit farm
animals. ‘We think consumer pressure will be by far the most effective way
of bringing about changes in animal welfare in the next decade,’ says Martin
Potter of the RSPCA. He says the scheme will link ‘caring farmers with consumers’,
and guarantee a market for producers who fear undercutting by rivals who
use less humane practices.

‘The theory is so good, but the practice is so awful,’ argues Ruth Harrison,
founder of the Farm Animal Care Trust and author of Animal Machines, the
book that launched the farm animal welfare movement in Britain in the mid-1960s.
‘The standards are just not good enough; they will not improve things, and
are anything but humane.’

For instance, the RSPCA has decided to accept barn eggs into the scheme.
While barn hens are not restricted to wire battery cages, they are kept
indoors at high densities and typically have their beaks trimmed to prevent
them harming each other. Debeaking is thought to cause chickens chronic
pain. The scheme will also take pork from farmers who confine pregnant sows
in narrow farrowing crates, which prevent mothers from lying on their piglets
but which Compassion in World Farming likens to ‘motherhood behind bars’.

‘The RSPCA seems essentially to be adopting a pro-intensive farming
policy,’ says Cindy Milburn, director of special projects for the World
Society for the Protection of Animals.

Critics also claim that the scheme may mislead the consumer. ‘The term
Freedom Foods is too emotive and it grossly exaggerates the freedom animals
have even in the best commercial systems,’ says Clare Druce, founder of
the Farm Animal Welfare Network. ‘Already, producers of battery eggs gloss
their products with pictures of rolling hills and words like ‘farm fresh’
or ‘nature fresh’,’ says Druce. ‘We don’t want consumers getting more confused.’

The RSPCA claims that it has chosen ‘scientifically based standards,
many of them recommended by the government’s advisory body, the Farm Animal
Welfare Council’. Potter argues: ‘You can go for Utopia and be beyond criticism,
but at the end of the day you will have improved the lot of only 1 per cent
of farm animals.’ Moreover, he contends, ‘we would not achieve anything
for animals if it’s so damned expensive that no one buys it’.

And Donald Broom, professor of animal welfare at the University of Cambridge,
believes the scheme will improve the lot of animals. ‘The RSPCA has had
to compromise between what is commercially achievable and what is ideal.
If standards are set too high, no one will really do it.’