Animal Welfare Thesis
Cherie Trojak
We aspire to meet increasing demand for affordable protein while improving animal welfare, including humane treatment of farm animals grounded in the Five Freedoms of animal welfare and responsible use of antibiotics.
Customers, suppliers, farmers, veterinarians, and NGOs have a shared interest in meeting increasing demand for affordable protein while improving animal welfare. Our stakeholders expect us to work with suppliers who do not tolerate animal abuse of any kind, find and implement solutions to address animal welfare concerns in their supply chains, and responsibly administer antibiotics to keep animals healthy while guarding against an increase in antibiotic resistance. While affordability remains a major concern, customers count on us to deliver products produced in ways that are consistent with their values and that support public health.
We also encourage our suppliers to participate in The Sustainability Insight System (THESIS) Index animal welfare assessments. THESIS is a performance assessment platform developed by The Sustainability Consortium that allows users to benchmark, quantify, and take action on significant sustainability issues within their consumer product supply chains.
Laying hens. Our Cage-Free Egg Supply Position sets foundational expectations for laying hens, including stating our requirement that 100% of our shell egg supply in the U.S. must be certified and compliant with the United Egg Producers Animal Husbandry Guidelines or an equivalent standard. Requirements include non-feed withdrawal molt methods; guidelines on beak trimming, handling, and euthanasia; requirements for cage-free systems; and third-party audits.
In 2016, Walmart U.S. and Sam's Club U.S. set goals to transition to 100% cage-free egg supply chains by 2025, subject to regulatory changes and based on available supply, affordability, and customer demand. In addition to promoting cage-free eggs with our customers, we have challenged our egg suppliers to innovate to improve the health and welfare of laying hens, including working toward the production and supply of cost-effective, cage-free egg products.
To identify ways to accelerate progress towards our cage-free egg goals, in 2021 we commissioned a third-party review of our transition strategy. The consultant engaged NGOs, animal scientists, suppliers, producer organizations, and farmers and reviewed the consumer and policy landscape. The consultant cited several barriers to transitioning to 100% cage-free eggs, including:
Progress has been slow for two reasons. First, suppliers, NGOs, and policy makers often have different views regarding optimal housing for animal welfare (e.g. whether sows in group housing are more susceptible to injury from other animals). Several states have or are putting in place differing regulations regarding the use of sow gestation crates, making it challenging to implement consistent solutions nationally. Second, capital costs to transition to crate-free housing, group housing or expansion of space per pig may result in increased cost to the consumer, reducing the affordability of pork as a protein, a particular concern in an inflationary environment in which consumers are price-sensitive.
Walmart will continue engaging suppliers and other stakeholders on animal welfare issues, solving for animal welfare, sustainability, affordability, and security of supply. Currently, we are engaging suppliers and experts on sow gestation and other animal welfare issues and will determine whether we need to update policies or practices.
3. Figure does not include deli meat or processed meat in frozen value-added items. The Walmart U.S. product net sales figure used for the calculation includes the product net sales for the previous four quarters (Q3 of FY2022 through Q2 of FY2023). Suppliers reported in THESIS on their antibiotic use for calendar year 2022.
Yet it seems there are things we can already do to make the lives of wild animals better. Welfare biology is a relatively new but quickly growing academic field exploring the welfare of wild animals and what we can do to improve it.
More research on wild animal welfare could involve further developing interventions for improving animal welfare. Interventions that already exist include wild animal vaccination to prevent diseases, fertility control to improve the welfare of urban wildlife, and ways of aiding animals affected by factors such as weather conditions or natural disasters. To ensure these interventions are effective, research is also needed to improve our understanding of how to measure the welfare of wild animals and how to model indirect impacts on ecosystems.
This introduction was last updated 10/11/2022. Thanks to Will Fenning for originally writing this introduction and Professor Oscar Horta for helpful feedback. Learn more about how we create our profiles.
Wild animals make up the vast majority of sentient beings, but their welfare is highly neglected. One promising approach to understanding their quality of life is comparing rate of biological aging in different populations.
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