Researcher: It is wrong to call conventional chicken production more sustainable than organic.

Keep as many chickens as possible in as little space as possible in a barn around the clock. Breed them for rapid growth on a minimum of feed and keep mortality low. That should give us climate-optimized production. But is it sustainable? No, say both Anja Brinch Riber and Mickey Gjerris. She is an ethologist and researcher in chicken welfare at Aarhus University, while he is a bioethicist at the University of Copenhagen and the author of, among other works, *The Animals’ Book*, published last year. “Before the parliamentary election in the spring, there was a focus on the climate impact of production, and I heard stakeholders highlight conventional broiler production as the most climate-friendly. The argument is that chickens are more feed-efficient, and because of their faster growth and higher feed conversion, this has evolved into the claim that conventional production is more sustainable. But that is an incorrect conclusion to draw,” says Anja Brinch Riber. **A question of morality** She refers to the EU’s definition of a sustainable agricultural policy, which is based on three pillars: the economic, environmental and social dimensions. Animal welfare falls under the social dimension, because good animal welfare is not only about how the individual animal feels. It also affects the employees who work with the animals every day, and better welfare will typically lead to greater well-being. At the same time, it can reduce the risk of disease outbreaks and thereby lessen the need for antibiotics, which is an important health parameter for society as a whole. Moreover, it is a question of social morality: What are we willing to subject our farm animals to? “It is therefore a fallacy to say that just because a production system is more feed-efficient, it is more sustainable. It may be more climate-friendly, but that does not necessarily make it more sustainable, because there are more factors to take into account,” says Anja Brinch Riber. **Can be calculated in several ways** In fact, she is not convinced that the most intensive production with turbo chickens is actually that much more climate-friendly than production involving slower-growing breeds. “You can calculate it in several ways. If you want to show that conventional broilers are more climate-friendly, you only calculate how much feed can be put into the chicken to produce one kilogram of meat. But if you start calculating other factors, the climate account looks worse,” says Anja Brinch Riber. The picture changes when one takes into account that, according to several studies, conventional turbo chickens have higher mortality rates and that more are rejected before slaughter, meaning that this type of production requires more parent birds. Ultimately, this can mislead consumers into believing that the cheapest conventional chicken is the sustainable choice, Anja Brinch Riber believes. This prompted her last year to seek funding for the Well-B project. Its purpose is to incorporate welfare as a parameter when assessing the sustainability of a production system. This also means that the project must determine how welfare can be measured so that it can be documented. “For many years, the focus has been on the idea that animal welfare is about the absence of negative welfare. For example, people have measured how many chickens are lame and how many have footpad dermatitis, and then concluded that a lower incidence is synonymous with higher animal welfare. But there has been a lack of focus on what we call ‘positive welfare’—that is, ensuring that the animals have good experiences. Organic production gives them better opportunities for this because their environment is enriched. They can choose for themselves whether they want to be indoors or outdoors, whether they want to forage in roughage or in the grass outside, whether they want to sunbathe, and so on. But we lack methods for measuring this positive welfare,” she says. **Does not believe welfare should be used as a yardstick** Bioethicist Mickey Gjerris agrees with Anja Brinch Riber that production can only be regarded as sustainable if the animals’ welfare is taken into account. However, he disagrees that welfare should be turned into a yardstick, in the same way that, for example, greenhouse-gas emissions or nutrient leaching are measured. In his view, this creates two problems: “One is that we reduce animal welfare to a quantitative quantity that can be measured and weighed, thereby reducing the animal to its measurable reactions instead of viewing animal welfare as a concept that, across time and space, seeks to capture the animal’s experiences and opportunities in life. The other is that we then turn animal welfare into something we can negotiate over, because it can be weighed against other sustainability factors.” He also points out that positive experiences are difficult to measure. He therefore imagines that, in the future, a producer could earn welfare points if a conventional chicken were allowed to live for 42 days instead of 35 before slaughter. “That is a very small step in the right direction, but then the producer can stand up and say that things are now good enough, and people can once again buy their chicken with a clear conscience. We are so far from treating animals properly that it cries out to heaven.” Instead, a high level of animal welfare should be a prerequisite for being allowed to produce with animals at all, Mickey Gjerris believes. “Animal welfare should not be something we can get around. We do not set human rights up as a yardstick and negotiate over them in the same way that we negotiate over greenhouse-gas levels. Animals’ right to a decent life should be on a par with our own right to one. We should organize production so that it can meet the animals’ needs.” **Must accept different prices** This means that we must accept that meat, eggs and dairy products become more expensive—even if that means that people on lower incomes may no longer be able to afford the classic bolognese or hamburger steak. “It is a little strange that meat has become precisely the area where, as a society, we refuse to accept social inequality, when we otherwise seem perfectly comfortable with inequality in several far more important areas, such as the healthcare system. If one believes that social inequality is acceptable, one can solve the issue in the meat sector through distributive policies. My view is rather that people should not be able to pay their way out of the responsibility for killing animals,” he says. Anja Brinch Riber agrees with Mickey Gjerris that it is easier to measure welfare on the basis of mortality, difficulties walking and other traditional indicators. But that is precisely something the project is intended to address, so that it will also become possible to measure the animals’ positive welfare. One example could be cameras that automatically register how active the animals are, since this is considered a sign of positive welfare. However, she maintains that it is necessary to measure and document welfare. “Mickey may say that we should not put numbers on it, but when we put numbers on the climate footprint of conventional broilers, how can we clarify what organic production can do if we do not put numbers on animal welfare? If there is no measure for it, we cannot work with it in the contexts that actually bring about changes in production. We have to obtain evidence and work with that rather than acting on the basis of a feeling,” says Anja Brinch Riber, continuing: “If organic chicken production is to grow from a market share of one percent, we need to give organic producers tools they can use in their marketing to show what they can do in their production that cannot be done in conventional production, and to document how they generally contribute to better animal welfare.” Mickey Gjerris, however, does not believe that the matter is so black and white that one either measures animal welfare or acts solely on the basis of gut feeling: “It is not a question of either natural science or feelings. There are many forms of understanding the world that are valid.” The article was written as part of the Well-B project, which is funded by Icrofs.