Aaron, this is a great idea. I strongly agree that bringing research closer to commercial farms is essential if we want findings that actually reflect what happens in practice, with much of what is produced in research settings (even those that try to mimick commercial practice) suffering from what we call the ‘healthy farm effect’. Commercial data capture the full messiness of real production, which is why it is so valuable.
External validity is not the only thing missing in welfare science. Most of what we know about animal welfare at commercial scale comes from single visits to farms, essentially a photograph of what happens. We need the video (longitudinal research). We need to know when different welfare problems start, how long they last, and how many animals are affected. In short, we need an epidemiology of animal welfare, and commercial farms are the only place where that can happen.
That said, for this to work, I believe a few things are needed:
Independence between funding and publication. In my experience working with industry-funded groups, there are often contractual or simply informal pressures (e.g. anticipation of future fundign) that discourage publishing unfavorable results . Agreements need to explicitly guarantee the right to publish regardless of outcome.
Independent analysis. Data collection can happen on farms, but analysis should be conducted or audited independently to reduce potential biases.
A clever design of incentives. Farmers should benefit from participating, but incentives shouldn’t promote selective reporting.
Standardization. The power of research on commercial farms will come from collecting consistents data and indicators across many farms, enabling large scale analyses with the proper statistical power and validity. This needs pre-defined protocols, clear definitions of variables and methods, preregistration where possible, and transparent data access. Without this, farm data risk being too messy or selectively reported.
With these safeguards, I believe research on farms will be of immense value. Farms are already generating huge amounts of data as you mentioned, one challenge now is creating the proper systems to use it .
Relatedly, I wonder how much welfare varies within production systems. For example, I am interested in knowing which of the following results in a greater increase in welfare. Layers going from:
A. Median furnished cages in the European Union (EU) to median cage-free aviaries in the EU. By median furnished cages in the EU, I mean ones with higher welfare per chicken-year than 50 % of the furnished cages in the EU.
B. 10th percentile furnished cages in the EU to 90th percentile furnished cages in the EU.
Do you have sense of how these compare? The question reminds me of your meta-analysis of hen mortality in different indoor housing systems. Median cage-free aviaries most likely have higher welfare than median furnished cages, and 90th percentile cage-free aviaries most likely have higher welfare than 90th percentile furnished cages. However, it might still be worth advocating for better management of animals within each system. It might be cheaper than moving to a better system, and capture a significant fraction of its benefits. Likewise, I wonder whether it may sometimes be worth advocating for replacing battery cages with furnished cages instead of cage-free aviaries, or for banning battery cages instead of all cages.
My general sense is that option A leads to a greater welfare increase. Not only based on what we measured, but also on recent evidence that pain is likely more intense and longer in cages (even furnished), as discussed here, as well as recent evidence of depressive-like states in cages (e.g., here).
So my answer is that even if furnished cages are less harmful than battery cages, I do not think that advocacy for ‘cages’ is worth pursuing.
Thanks, Cynthia. Is there enough data for you to make a quantitative comparison between A and B? If not, do you have plans to look further into this in the future? I wonder whether you think A increases welfare, for example, 1.5 or 5 times as much as B.
Hi Vasco, yes, this is something that will be part of the Welfare Footprint of the Egg. We’re now including the analyses of plausible scenarios within each system, including scenarios where best practices are used, as well as scenarios of complete failure, which will give you an idea of the variability you’re mentioning.
Aaron, this is a great idea. I strongly agree that bringing research closer to commercial farms is essential if we want findings that actually reflect what happens in practice, with much of what is produced in research settings (even those that try to mimick commercial practice) suffering from what we call the ‘healthy farm effect’. Commercial data capture the full messiness of real production, which is why it is so valuable.
External validity is not the only thing missing in welfare science. Most of what we know about animal welfare at commercial scale comes from single visits to farms, essentially a photograph of what happens. We need the video (longitudinal research). We need to know when different welfare problems start, how long they last, and how many animals are affected. In short, we need an epidemiology of animal welfare, and commercial farms are the only place where that can happen.
That said, for this to work, I believe a few things are needed:
Independence between funding and publication. In my experience working with industry-funded groups, there are often contractual or simply informal pressures (e.g. anticipation of future fundign) that discourage publishing unfavorable results . Agreements need to explicitly guarantee the right to publish regardless of outcome.
Independent analysis. Data collection can happen on farms, but analysis should be conducted or audited independently to reduce potential biases.
A clever design of incentives. Farmers should benefit from participating, but incentives shouldn’t promote selective reporting.
Standardization. The power of research on commercial farms will come from collecting consistents data and indicators across many farms, enabling large scale analyses with the proper statistical power and validity. This needs pre-defined protocols, clear definitions of variables and methods, preregistration where possible, and transparent data access. Without this, farm data risk being too messy or selectively reported.
With these safeguards, I believe research on farms will be of immense value. Farms are already generating huge amounts of data as you mentioned, one challenge now is creating the proper systems to use it .
Hi Cynthia. Thanks for the clarifying comment.
Relatedly, I wonder how much welfare varies within production systems. For example, I am interested in knowing which of the following results in a greater increase in welfare. Layers going from:
A. Median furnished cages in the European Union (EU) to median cage-free aviaries in the EU. By median furnished cages in the EU, I mean ones with higher welfare per chicken-year than 50 % of the furnished cages in the EU.
B. 10th percentile furnished cages in the EU to 90th percentile furnished cages in the EU.
Do you have sense of how these compare? The question reminds me of your meta-analysis of hen mortality in different indoor housing systems. Median cage-free aviaries most likely have higher welfare than median furnished cages, and 90th percentile cage-free aviaries most likely have higher welfare than 90th percentile furnished cages. However, it might still be worth advocating for better management of animals within each system. It might be cheaper than moving to a better system, and capture a significant fraction of its benefits. Likewise, I wonder whether it may sometimes be worth advocating for replacing battery cages with furnished cages instead of cage-free aviaries, or for banning battery cages instead of all cages.
Hi Vasco, thank you for raising this.
My general sense is that option A leads to a greater welfare increase. Not only based on what we measured, but also on recent evidence that pain is likely more intense and longer in cages (even furnished), as discussed here, as well as recent evidence of depressive-like states in cages (e.g., here).
So my answer is that even if furnished cages are less harmful than battery cages, I do not think that advocacy for ‘cages’ is worth pursuing.
Thanks, Cynthia. Is there enough data for you to make a quantitative comparison between A and B? If not, do you have plans to look further into this in the future? I wonder whether you think A increases welfare, for example, 1.5 or 5 times as much as B.
Hi Vasco, yes, this is something that will be part of the Welfare Footprint of the Egg. We’re now including the analyses of plausible scenarios within each system, including scenarios where best practices are used, as well as scenarios of complete failure, which will give you an idea of the variability you’re mentioning.
Great to know.