Our Response To The Open Letter | News | RSPCA - RSPCA
Our response to the open letter
Dear all,
The RSPCA exists solely to improve the lives of all animals. We were set up 200 years ago in part to improve the welfare of farmed animals and, since that time, we have worked tirelessly, with others, to make their lives better. We have worked together with you, our fellow campaigners and animal lovers in the sector and beyond, to end barren battery cages for hens, sow stalls for pigs, veal crates for calves, together we’ve introduced CCTV cameras in all slaughterhouses. We continue to campaign to end the use of cages in farming, for imports of foie gras to be banned, for retailers to sign up to the Better Chicken Commitment, for the government to commit to an ambitious food strategy with a clear commitment to significantly reduce the consumption of meat, fish and dairy, and for people to ‘eat less, eat better’ - to reduce the amount of animal products they eat and if they do, to choose higher welfare. But we know that there is so much more to do and change takes time. It took 50 years of campaigning alongside like-minded organisations and individuals to end the gruelling and unnecessary live exports of animals earlier this year. Like you, we will not give up on farmed animals now.
Animal welfare is hard, and farmed animal welfare is even harder. We are working against some very wealthy vested interests who actively resist progress at every stage. We need to work even harder than before to turn the tide for farmed animals. The rapid growth of industrial farming is the biggest, and most difficult issue we must all tackle for the sake of our planet, for each other and the animals we share it with. It is the single biggest animal welfare issue we face here and around the globe and we are headed in the wrong direction.
We can’t do this alone and we need to take the public with us. The reality we are grappling with is that 94% of people currently choose to eat meat and so there are billions of animals being farmed right now, often in appalling conditions, with little regard for their welfare. There is currently no specific legal protection for salmon, trout, turkeys, dairy cattle, beef cattle and sheep, and without our standards many millions of farmed animals would live worse lives.
We all agree that things just aren’t good enough for farmed animals right now. We know that the only way to make real and lasting change for farmed animals is to drastically reduce the number of animals farmed and the amount of animal products we eat. But society is so far away from this point and this debate is taking place on the margins of society whereas it should be a mainstream public debate. Our role is to put this back on the agenda and inspire everyone to work together to improve farmed animals’ lives.
We all know that changing animals’ lives is tough, but we cannot step back from the animals who are on farms now, that will be on farms for the next 20, 30, or even 50 years. There are important developments coming down the track that could help effect a revolution of our food and farming system into something more compassionate with animal welfare at its heart. The refinement and growth of alternative proteins, lab-grown meat has been licensed for pet food in the UK and has huge potential to change the future of food, the use of AI to properly understand how what we do impacts on the animals around us, using computer modelling and technologies like organs grown on chips which shows that the end of using animals in science could be within reach - all these things could fundamentally change the way we see and treat animals. But this is at best a generation away. Today’s farmed animals need us now.
That is where RSPCA Assured is making a difference. RSPCA Assured means the difference between a hen spending her life in a cage, or not. A mother pig giving birth in a farrowing crate, or not. Pigs having comfortable bedding to sleep on, or not. It means salmon has compulsory veterinary health welfare plans, and stocking density is half that seen in the United States. Without RSPCA Assured, millions of farmed animals would be left with even less protection. Whilst we think the best way to effect change alongside campaigning is working with industry to improve welfare, we’re not afraid to make a stand when we need to. Between 2010 to 2015, the number of duck members on the RSPCA Assured scheme fell from 50% of the industry to 0%. Among the reasons was the requirement, under our standards for ducks, to provide something so fundamental as access to water they could bathe in. Now the vast majority of ducks farmed in this country do not even have full body access to water. Without the RSPCA welfare standards, millions of farmed animals could be left, like ducks, with little or no protection at all.
We know we need to do more and we want to do more, which is why we continually update our standards to drive up welfare for animals not just in the UK but around the world. Our standards have pulled the rest of the industry with us. If we stepped back from this now, we let the rest of the industry off the hook and it risks a race to the bottom for farmed animal welfare.
We understand why people are distressed by what they have seen. Both the RSPCA and RSPCA Assured take any welfare concerns on farms very seriously - this is the sole focus of the assurance scheme and central to the core work of the RSPCA. Failure to conform with the scheme standards is unacceptable. Once concerns came to light earlier this Summer, we launched an immediate investigation and visited all farms identified as being members.
But our supporters, partners and the public need confidence that RSPCA Assured is consistently delivering better welfare than standard farming practices. So alongside this investigation, we launched an independent review of RSPCA Assured, which has been carried out over several months, including unannounced visits to more than 200 members of the scheme. This is in addition to the existing checks we have in place as part of the scheme.
This has been a detailed and comprehensive review looking at a large number of farms and the analysis is still ongoing. Once we assess these findings, we will take any necessary robust action.
But we are not prepared to abandon farmed animals now and we call on all those who care deeply about animals like we do to work together with us to bring about change. If we ignore the realities of society as it is now, if we refuse to work with industry to bring about change, we will be failing animals. Incremental change may seem too slow for all of us who want to change the world for animals now, but it works. We are worlds away in our legal protections, attitudes and behaviours towards all animals than we were 200, 100 or even 20 years ago. Setting ourselves against each other means there are no winners - particularly not the animals that we all care so deeply about. We may disagree on how we get there but we are united in where we want to be. If we work together, we can get there faster.
Best wishes,
Chris Sherwood
Chief Executive