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OSU professor discusses implications of Prop 2-like legislation
In a recently released paper, Luther Tweeten, Emeritus Chaired Professor in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics at Ohio State University discusses the economic implications of animal welfare regulations proposed for Ohio agriculture. As you know, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) wants to change the way chickens, pigs and dairy calves are raised in Ohio. The group will likely put the proposal before Ohio voters next year if producers don’t cooperate with them in writing new legislation governing the way livestock and poultry are raised in the state. They placed the issue on California’s ballot last fall as Proposition 2 and the voters passed it.

First, it is important to recognize that nearly everyone including persons associated with large confinement feeding operations supports humane treatment of animals. Tweeten sites an HSUS report by Shields and Duncan which says the issue is what constitutes humane treatment. On the one hand, large confinement cage or crate operations would seem to reduce animal welfare by inhibiting the freedom of animals for nesting, sex, and exercise.

On the other hand, Tweeten says confinement is associated with protection of animals from extreme temperatures, predators, and soil-borne diseases and parasites.  Animals in confinement can be monitored closely for health.

Tweeten cited a study by K. A. Zaludik and others, done in Austria which evaluated the usefulness of the government’s Animal Needs Index (ANI) auditing how hen welfare is affected by floor space, feeder space, and the like for organic laying hen production.  No relationship was found between a good score on the ANI and hen welfare as assessed by mortality, injury, measures of abnormal behavior, and footpad and breast lesions.  This and other empirical studies give conflicting results regarding the contribution of a “favorable” environment to animal welfare. 

Dr. Tweeten pointed out that the economic implications of Prop 2-type regulations imposed on Ohio’s agriculture are more clear than the foregoing animal welfare implications.  Market forces help protect animals. Abused and diseased animals reduce profits, forcing animal producers to use more humane practices.

Socially acceptable production practices for animal welfare ultimately rest on the public’s values and attitudes and not just on science.  Such values range from indifferent observers to animal rightists such as vegetarians or vegans who would end use of animals as sources of food, leather, fiber, draft-power, or pets. Even among those who make animal products a part of their diet, the range of preferred animal production practices stretches from conventional to organic, to free range. 

Markets can serve discriminating consumers over this broad range of preferences.  The key is to label animal products by production practices.  Preferred animal welfare practices may be more costly to producers, but consumers can “vote” their preferences with dollars in the market, Tweeten suggests. A paper by Joy Mench and others, University of California, Davis, Department of Animal Science, says, “Labeling, a means for producers to receive premium prices for humane and more costly animal welfare practices, seems an ideal solution because it allows each consumer to uniquely express demand for traditional or enhanced animal welfare practices in the market.”

Animal welfare and environmental regulations are unlikely to eliminate the current cost advantage of large farms over small farms.  Numerous studies indicate that the cost of producing a unit of animal products is lower on large farms than on small farms, according to Dr. Tweeten.

Who would be the economic gainers and losers from imposition of Prop 2-type regulations on Ohio’s agriculture?  Dr. Tweeten said, “Ohio would lose: laborers, consumers, livestock and crop producers, and the economy as a whole. Ohio’s laying hen enterprise, second only in the nation to that of Iowa and 38 percent greater than that of California in 2007, would be decimated.  Ohio’s loss from Prop 2-type legislation would total 7,928 jobs and associated income.”

One important difference between Ohio and California poultry production bodes ill for Ohio agriculture.  Ohio’s poultry industry (layers, broilers, and turkeys) relies for feed more heavily than does California on in-state produced corn and soybean meal.  Tweeten’s analysis shows Ohio’s livestock industry consumes an estimated 60 percent of the Ohio-based corn and 94 percent of the Ohio-based soybean meal.  Thus state crop producers would experience a relatively greater economic setback from Prop 2-type regulations in Ohio than in California.

Ohio’s consumers would lose as workers and income-earners, but Ohioans would face little if any higher food prices with imposition of Prop 2-type regulations as surrounding states supply low-cost animal products.

Thus other states would gain jobs and income at Ohio’s expense as animal products consumed in Ohio would be produced elsewhere.
To avoid interstate trade that abrogates the intended animal welfare gains from Prop 2-type regulations, the HSUS can be expected to pursue national legislation to impose regulations on all U.S. livestock producers. Even if such measures were enacted, they would be severely undermined over time by livestock product imports from Canada, Mexico, and other countries often under animal welfare conditions below Ohio’s standards.
6/10/2009