Ensuring animal welfare standards are upheld in international trade policy
Imagine a world where every farmed animal, no matter where they are, has protection, freedom from suffering, and a life worth living.
Animal welfare standards vary significantly across the globe, with billions of farmed animals still confined in factory farms.
A growing global movement is calling for change, demanding an end to practices such as battery cages for hens, sow stalls for pigs, and live cutting (mulesing) performed on sheep. In response, some regions, including the EU, New Zealand, the UK, and Switzerland, have implemented higher welfare standards.
However, many people are unaware that this progress is being undermined. Successive political leaders have continued to allow the import of animal products from countries that fail to meet local standards, in some circumstances outsourcing and shifting production overseas, fuelling the suffering of animals in those countries under practices that would be illegal locally.​
Low welfare imports
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Sow stalls: The majority of pork currently imported into the UK comes from countries like Denmark, Spain, and Poland that allow the use of sow stalls, in which mother pigs are confined to narrow cages where they cannot perform basic behaviours, such as turn around or build nests. The UK banned the use of sow stalls in 1999.
Sow in a sow stall in Poland (2022)
© Farm Transparency Project: human.cruelties
Battery cages: 86% of liquid egg imports into New Zealand in 2022 came from China and Australia where egg-laying hens can be kept in battery cages where there is less space than an A4 sheet of paper per bird leaving them unable to perform natural behaviour such as dust bathing and nesting. New Zealand’s ban on battery cages came into force in 2023.
86%
Egg-laying hens in an overcrowded battery cage in India (2023)
© Shatabdi Chakrabarti / FIAPO / We Animals Media
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Foie gras: Producing foie gras in the UK by means of force-feeding has been effectively banned since 2007. Nevertheless, the importation of foie gras has continued, with an estimated 628 tonnes imported from the EU in 2023, a precipitous rise from just 28 tonnes in 2021.
Force feeding a duck for foie gras in Spain (2011)
© Luis Tato: We Animals Media
Live lamb cutting (mulesing): All of the wool imported to New Zealand in 2022 came from Australia where live lamb cutting is a widely used practice. It entails removing parts of the skin from live sheep without anaesthetic, causing severe immediate and long-term pain to lambs. In New Zealand performing mulesing can result in a criminal conviction
100%
Source of NZ import statistics: FAOSTAT (2022); and UK: International Trade Centre (2023)
Read the new report
Closing the Welfare Gap: Why the UK Must Apply Its Animal Protection Standards to Imports
This report reveals for the first time the current and future landscape of the UK's animal product imports. It identifies critical gaps in animal welfare standards between the UK and those that export to it and proposes a solution to require animal products imported into the UK to meet domestic animal welfare standards.
Solution
Animal Policy International is working with policymakers, farmers, and NGOs towards responsible imports that meet WTO rules, align with standards and expectations in higher-welfare regions, create fairer conditions for farmers, and help to promote higher animal welfare standards in low-welfare countries.
Together, we can create a world where animal protection has a meaningful impact and ensures the well-being of animals everywhere.
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