Hi Emma, thanks for your work. It was encouraging to see the plight of chickens being featured so prominently by the RSPCA at the beginning of the year. Some questions:
How do you respond to accusations of “humane washing”, and do you think your standards are the best they could be? For instance, your standards allow for pigs to be gassed in slaughterhouses despite the RSPCA having called for a ban on the gassing of pigs in 2018 and expressed concern about chickens being exposed to highly aversive levels of carbon dioxide?
There has also been a lot of coverage recently (some of it driven by the concerns of your President, the broadcaster Chris Packham) about the atrocious welfare standards on UK salmon farms, including the high prevalence of sea lice infestation and high mortality rates. Yet, in a submission to a Parliamentary committee, you said that 100% of salmon production in the UK is RSPCA-certified, meaning that as a September 2023 report found, RSPCA-certified farms with mortality rates of up to 74 percent can carry the label.
Even though your standards are clearly better for farmed animals, how confident are you that farms are actually adhering to them? A number of investigations over the years have found poor welfare for animals at RSCPA-assured farms. I see that your scheme involves pre-announced inspections unless there has been a complaint, in which case unannounced inspections may occur. Would you be willing to move to unannounced inspections across the board? We now have CCTV cameras in slaughterhouses in the UK (though it has led to some improvement, the degree to which the footage is being monitored is in question) - would you support mandatory CCTV on RSPCA-certified farms too?
How many farms have been RSCPA-certified over the years and how many have you removed from the scheme due to poor welfare practices?
How do you balance engagement with industry with ensuring that your standards are as stringent as possible? I see that the egg industry has recently complained about your proposed new standards (around natural lighting and verandas) for egg-laying hens.
I see that you have an email campaign encouraging supermarkets to adopt the Better Chicken Commitment. How combative are you willing to be if they don’t?
Do you see the Better Chicken Commitment as complementary to your existing scheme? Are there any major differences between your own scheme and the Commitment? As your website notes, only 1.2% of chicken produced in the UK is RSCPA-assured, so if retailers and suppliers follow through on the Commitment do you envisage that this percentage will rise?
The RSPCA has tremendous respect and therefore has social and political capital. What would you say to people who think you should use some of that capital to more forcefully argue that people should drastically reduce or eliminate their consumption of animal products, particularly chickens, turkeys, eggs, fishes and pigs?
What are some of the major pledges on farmed animal welfare that you’d like to see from political parties ahead of this year’s UK general election?
Hi, thanks for your questions—I have tried to cover all of them below:
The RSPCA welfare standards and the RSPCA Assured certification scheme exist because the way in which farmed animals are treated is simply not good enough and legislation is insufficient to protect their welfare; there is simply no con or sleight of hand in that. Change takes time, but we are progressing farmed animal welfare every day. We will continue to work with the farming industry for as long as it takes to see all animals treated with kindness, compassion and respect. We update our standards roughly every two years to incrementally improve welfare, based either on advances in knowledge and evidence, or by continually working with industry, other organisations, government and experts to push changes through over time. We will always be improving our standards to achieve higher levels of welfare, that is an inherent part of the strategy behind the scheme. Setting standards and running an assurance scheme is challenging—but we challenge ourselves to do what we believe is going to impact the lives of animals for the better. I am convinced that a welfare focussed assurance scheme like RSPCA Assured improves the lives of millions of animals. We have called on the government repeatedly to set a date for ending the use of CO2 stunning and have repeated this in our work with political parties in advance of the next general election. Our standard requires 90% concentration of CO2 (compared to 80% by law) which reduces suffering and reduces the time to death.
RSPCA Assured labelled salmon comes from farms that are inspected up to 500 standards aimed at improving their welfare. These cover every stage of a salmon’s life from hatchery to slaughter. The standards have been a catalyst for change throughout the entire salmon industry with most farms now adopting these standards. If it wasn’t for the RSPCA and RSPCA Assured choosing to work with the salmon farming industry these, and many other significant welfare improvements, would never have been made. We respect that there are many different views on salmon farming and we share concerns about the challenges the industry is facing. Sadly, there are no quick fixes for these challenges and it takes time to develop science, evolve understanding and change practices, but we are constantly furthering learning and driving towards finding solutions. It would be the infinitely easier option to just turn our backs, but we don’t believe that is conducive to improving fish welfare. Salmon farming exists whether we are present or not, and currently there is no specific legislation to protect the welfare of salmon. Without voices like ours, encouraging the food and farming industries to adopt higher welfare standards, many millions of fish could be farmed to lower welfare standards. We are due to release a new set of salmon standards in the coming weeks, which will further drive welfare standards up.
RSPCA Assured works closely with all members to ensure that the RSPCA welfare standards are being met. All RSPCA Assured members have thorough annual assessments conducted by specially trained RSPCA Assured assessors as well being subject to unannounced spot checks. Additionally, RSPCA Assured works with SCI (Supply Chain In-Sights) assessors to inspect processors and packers and ensure a full chain of custody for products that carry the RSPCA Assured logo. RSPCA Assured takes all complaints of poor animal welfare very seriously, we will not hesitate to suspend or remove any member from the scheme if appropriate. Sadly, there are individual cases where failures have been identified, but steps are always taken to immediately address and rectify any issues. It is important to remember that for every animal shown on covertly-filmed video, there are millions more who’ve had a better life thanks to RSPCA Assured. We are right in the middle of a piece of work looking at our assessment model, which is considering exactly these questions. This piece of work is due to be finished over the next 18 months.
In order to join the scheme a farm must be assessed and then have an annual assessment (and more frequent if concerns are found or raised). Farms can be removed in a number of ways; temporarily, permanently, placed in special measures etc. The scheme has been running for 30 years so I am afraid I don’t know the number of farms that have been permanently or temporarily removed in that time. We currently have around 4,000 farms on the scheme. Most recently a hen catching team has been permanently removed from the scheme.
We use a robust and independent process to set our standards. We try to be as transparent as possible and the full process is set out here. As you would expect when we are implementing changes we do get push back from industry, other times we get support. We work with a wide range of farmers, producers, retailers and others to inform the standards—but they are always based on the approach of increasing welfare and a strong evidence base.
Our email campaign secured about 44,000 actions which we were very pleased with. My view is that the strength of the animal welfare sector is really felt when we have a diversity of approaches calling for a unified goal; if we all adopt the same tactic we reduce our impact. We are committed to encouraging retailers to adopt the BCC and celebrating those that do.
Yes we see the BCC and the RSPCA standards for chickens as being complementary. Our standard goes much further as it covers the full life of the birds, and has hundreds of welfare requirements which must be met; including handling and transporting for example. Our hope is that as the BCC grows so will the number of birds raised under RSPCA standards.
We have a strong meat reduction (and farmed animal reduction) message. We call for an end to all intensive farming and a reduction in both consumption and production of animal products, and a reduction in the number of animals farmed. This is one of the messages of our general election manifesto work for example. We’ve also sponsored three reports recently looking at the role of alternative protein and in 2022 we devoted our annual Wilberforce Lecture to exploring food and farming systems. We are currently working on a foresight report about the future of the relationship between humans and animals which will further examine the role of diet.
Thank you! Great to see that you’re considering some of these questions and thanks for linking to your general election manifesto. I agree with the broad theme that, since some/many farms do abide by your standards (even when you’re not looking) and may not have done otherwise, millions of animals have better lives as a result. But for every farm found to be falling short during an undercover investigation, I imagine there are also many more getting away with it, which is what prompted my questions about compliance rates—hopefully we’ll be able to get better estimates as a result of the review into your assessment and monitoring process.
Hi Emma, thanks for your work. It was encouraging to see the plight of chickens being featured so prominently by the RSPCA at the beginning of the year. Some questions:
How do you respond to accusations of “humane washing”, and do you think your standards are the best they could be? For instance, your standards allow for pigs to be gassed in slaughterhouses despite the RSPCA having called for a ban on the gassing of pigs in 2018 and expressed concern about chickens being exposed to highly aversive levels of carbon dioxide?
There has also been a lot of coverage recently (some of it driven by the concerns of your President, the broadcaster Chris Packham) about the atrocious welfare standards on UK salmon farms, including the high prevalence of sea lice infestation and high mortality rates. Yet, in a submission to a Parliamentary committee, you said that 100% of salmon production in the UK is RSPCA-certified, meaning that as a September 2023 report found, RSPCA-certified farms with mortality rates of up to 74 percent can carry the label.
Even though your standards are clearly better for farmed animals, how confident are you that farms are actually adhering to them? A number of investigations over the years have found poor welfare for animals at RSCPA-assured farms. I see that your scheme involves pre-announced inspections unless there has been a complaint, in which case unannounced inspections may occur. Would you be willing to move to unannounced inspections across the board? We now have CCTV cameras in slaughterhouses in the UK (though it has led to some improvement, the degree to which the footage is being monitored is in question) - would you support mandatory CCTV on RSPCA-certified farms too?
How many farms have been RSCPA-certified over the years and how many have you removed from the scheme due to poor welfare practices?
How do you balance engagement with industry with ensuring that your standards are as stringent as possible? I see that the egg industry has recently complained about your proposed new standards (around natural lighting and verandas) for egg-laying hens.
I see that you have an email campaign encouraging supermarkets to adopt the Better Chicken Commitment. How combative are you willing to be if they don’t?
Do you see the Better Chicken Commitment as complementary to your existing scheme? Are there any major differences between your own scheme and the Commitment? As your website notes, only 1.2% of chicken produced in the UK is RSCPA-assured, so if retailers and suppliers follow through on the Commitment do you envisage that this percentage will rise?
The RSPCA has tremendous respect and therefore has social and political capital. What would you say to people who think you should use some of that capital to more forcefully argue that people should drastically reduce or eliminate their consumption of animal products, particularly chickens, turkeys, eggs, fishes and pigs?
What are some of the major pledges on farmed animal welfare that you’d like to see from political parties ahead of this year’s UK general election?
Hi, thanks for your questions—I have tried to cover all of them below:
The RSPCA welfare standards and the RSPCA Assured certification scheme exist because the way in which farmed animals are treated is simply not good enough and legislation is insufficient to protect their welfare; there is simply no con or sleight of hand in that. Change takes time, but we are progressing farmed animal welfare every day. We will continue to work with the farming industry for as long as it takes to see all animals treated with kindness, compassion and respect. We update our standards roughly every two years to incrementally improve welfare, based either on advances in knowledge and evidence, or by continually working with industry, other organisations, government and experts to push changes through over time. We will always be improving our standards to achieve higher levels of welfare, that is an inherent part of the strategy behind the scheme. Setting standards and running an assurance scheme is challenging—but we challenge ourselves to do what we believe is going to impact the lives of animals for the better. I am convinced that a welfare focussed assurance scheme like RSPCA Assured improves the lives of millions of animals. We have called on the government repeatedly to set a date for ending the use of CO2 stunning and have repeated this in our work with political parties in advance of the next general election. Our standard requires 90% concentration of CO2 (compared to 80% by law) which reduces suffering and reduces the time to death.
RSPCA Assured labelled salmon comes from farms that are inspected up to 500 standards aimed at improving their welfare. These cover every stage of a salmon’s life from hatchery to slaughter. The standards have been a catalyst for change throughout the entire salmon industry with most farms now adopting these standards. If it wasn’t for the RSPCA and RSPCA Assured choosing to work with the salmon farming industry these, and many other significant welfare improvements, would never have been made. We respect that there are many different views on salmon farming and we share concerns about the challenges the industry is facing. Sadly, there are no quick fixes for these challenges and it takes time to develop science, evolve understanding and change practices, but we are constantly furthering learning and driving towards finding solutions. It would be the infinitely easier option to just turn our backs, but we don’t believe that is conducive to improving fish welfare. Salmon farming exists whether we are present or not, and currently there is no specific legislation to protect the welfare of salmon. Without voices like ours, encouraging the food and farming industries to adopt higher welfare standards, many millions of fish could be farmed to lower welfare standards. We are due to release a new set of salmon standards in the coming weeks, which will further drive welfare standards up.
RSPCA Assured works closely with all members to ensure that the RSPCA welfare standards are being met. All RSPCA Assured members have thorough annual assessments conducted by specially trained RSPCA Assured assessors as well being subject to unannounced spot checks. Additionally, RSPCA Assured works with SCI (Supply Chain In-Sights) assessors to inspect processors and packers and ensure a full chain of custody for products that carry the RSPCA Assured logo. RSPCA Assured takes all complaints of poor animal welfare very seriously, we will not hesitate to suspend or remove any member from the scheme if appropriate. Sadly, there are individual cases where failures have been identified, but steps are always taken to immediately address and rectify any issues. It is important to remember that for every animal shown on covertly-filmed video, there are millions more who’ve had a better life thanks to RSPCA Assured. We are right in the middle of a piece of work looking at our assessment model, which is considering exactly these questions. This piece of work is due to be finished over the next 18 months.
In order to join the scheme a farm must be assessed and then have an annual assessment (and more frequent if concerns are found or raised). Farms can be removed in a number of ways; temporarily, permanently, placed in special measures etc. The scheme has been running for 30 years so I am afraid I don’t know the number of farms that have been permanently or temporarily removed in that time. We currently have around 4,000 farms on the scheme. Most recently a hen catching team has been permanently removed from the scheme.
We use a robust and independent process to set our standards. We try to be as transparent as possible and the full process is set out here. As you would expect when we are implementing changes we do get push back from industry, other times we get support. We work with a wide range of farmers, producers, retailers and others to inform the standards—but they are always based on the approach of increasing welfare and a strong evidence base.
Our email campaign secured about 44,000 actions which we were very pleased with. My view is that the strength of the animal welfare sector is really felt when we have a diversity of approaches calling for a unified goal; if we all adopt the same tactic we reduce our impact. We are committed to encouraging retailers to adopt the BCC and celebrating those that do.
Yes we see the BCC and the RSPCA standards for chickens as being complementary. Our standard goes much further as it covers the full life of the birds, and has hundreds of welfare requirements which must be met; including handling and transporting for example. Our hope is that as the BCC grows so will the number of birds raised under RSPCA standards.
We have a strong meat reduction (and farmed animal reduction) message. We call for an end to all intensive farming and a reduction in both consumption and production of animal products, and a reduction in the number of animals farmed. This is one of the messages of our general election manifesto work for example. We’ve also sponsored three reports recently looking at the role of alternative protein and in 2022 we devoted our annual Wilberforce Lecture to exploring food and farming systems. We are currently working on a foresight report about the future of the relationship between humans and animals which will further examine the role of diet.
All our requests to political parties can be found here: https://politicalanimal.rspca.org.uk/2024-general-election
Thank you! Great to see that you’re considering some of these questions and thanks for linking to your general election manifesto. I agree with the broad theme that, since some/many farms do abide by your standards (even when you’re not looking) and may not have done otherwise, millions of animals have better lives as a result. But for every farm found to be falling short during an undercover investigation, I imagine there are also many more getting away with it, which is what prompted my questions about compliance rates—hopefully we’ll be able to get better estimates as a result of the review into your assessment and monitoring process.