Head versus heart

NGF speaks to Andrea Rosati of the European Federation of Animal Science and hears about the importance of basing animal health decision firmly on science.

“Sometimes we over-humanise animals. This can actually make things worse because animals behave differently from human beings and we shouldn't pretend otherwise”
-Andrea Rosati

What kind of economic impacts can a failure to effectively address animal health issues have, for both producers and consumers?
Andrea Rosati. I think the direct economic impacts are mainly for producers rather than for consumers. With the current fears over swine flu, people stop buying swine products. There is no reason for them to do this, but that is often the way that consumers react. They are worried about swine flu so they stop buying pork and instead buy beef. Then in two years' time we have a problem with beef and they go back to pork. Large numbers of consumers change their habits in response to these issues which can have a big impact on producers. I read a statistic that said that more French farmers were committing suicide as a result of the BSE crisis than people were actually killed by BSE.

I read this somewhere and I bring it up now it because it shows just how much producers can be impacted by animal health issues. This isn't just the farmers, but processors and anybody else involved in the food production business.

Do these animal health scares like swine flu have a long-term impact or are they quickly forgotten about once the next problem comes along?
AR. If we could see a graph of what happened to sales when we had BSE, foot-and-mouth disease and avian flu, or any of the other crises we've had to deal with, you would see a big drop in consumption of the affected product right at the beginning. Then, little by little, it would start to creep back up, but it never really reaches its original position. It's always a little lower, but at the end it will come closer. The question was about swine flu. I think as with all the other times, people are already starting to turn back to pig meat or swine products in general. Little by little we're coming back to the original position.

Do you think that the European governments and regulatory bodies do enough to promote the health and welfare of animals bred for food?
AR. I think they do. It doesn't mean they do everything right all the time, but it's not an easy job. I'm quite positive about the fact that we should feel safe in this aspect. The European government and the European Union in general are doing really well, and compared with the rest of the world I still think that Europe is the most effective continent in dealing with these issues. We could discuss forever and say that they could do this and that and other things, but there are many different opinions. As a citizen and a consumer in Europe I feel quite safe with what the European government and EU are doing.

If there is one thing that you think could be improved or could be changed that you'd like to see, what would that be?
AR. I would better check imported products from other continents, for many different reasons. Sometimes there's lack of control. It's just different and we can't assume that the rest of the world is like Europe. I'm thinking about cattle identification for instance. In Europe there are national databases that log every cow that is born. It doesn't mean that the database works perfectly, but we are close. However we import a large amount of beef cattle, mainly from the southern hemisphere, and over there identification is just not the same. A lot less attention is paid to it and tracing the origins of a product is very difficult. 

This might create trouble if we need to trace back because of problems with animal or animal products arriving from outside Europe. On the other hand it's not very fair that European producers have to expend energy and expense to ensure traceability while foreign producers don't. I know that the European Union is working to improve the traceability of foreign food, but I also know that, especially in southern hemisphere countries, it is one thing to say we want to do something and quite another to really do it.

Do you think there is currently a correct balance between animal welfare considerations and commercial effectiveness?
AR. I think there are two sides. There are emotional issues, people are trying to avoid the problems of animal suffering and are looking at the care of animals without approaching it on a sufficiently scientific basis. On the other side are industries, the big industries that are pushing to continue to produce and to grow in the market. As a consumer and as an individual citizen I think there should be a good balance of the two. I don't want that we are ruled only by emotional people. But on the other hand not even the free market is the best solution because that means the animals are suffering more and sometimes you close one eye and sometimes even two eyes to animal health control. It should be a good balance as I say, but they are not really doing a bad job so far in Europe.

What are EAAP's key priorities going to be in the immediate future?
AR. In August we have our annual meeting and we expect 1500 attendees to come to Barcelona where it will be taking place. One of the big topics we are going to be addressing is biodiversity and sustainable animal production systems. I think this is really an important issue for us. Of course we can talk about protecting the environment, but the real major challenge is around sustainability. It is my favourite issue because without a move towards sustainable animal farming for animal production in Europe, we will soon not have any animal farming on the continent. Above all else, a farmer is a person who has a business and if we don't take care of the sustainability of his business, he will not be farming. This will create problems for him but also for the market across Europe. Today we pay about 50 percent in relative terms of what we used to pay for meat 30 or 40 years ago. That's because farmers are producing much more efficiently than they were before.

But these more efficient methods of farming are creating trouble for the environment, because the farmers are not taking care of the countryside, especially in marginal areas.  If this continues then those places could become abandoned. Environmentally speaking that's a problem. Also thinking about social problems, there are still millions of people in Europe making a living out of animal farming. If they aren't able to remain economically sustainable they will not continue in the business and that could lead to many people becoming unemployed. With the economic crisis we have right now, it's not what we want.

Emotional problems

There is one personal criticism I have in response to people's ideas about animal welfare. This is purely my own feeling nothing to the with the EAAP. It's what I call the Disney problem. We grow up with the animals speaking like human beings, behaving like human beings and having feelings like human beings like in the Disney cartoons.  We all grew up more or less with that and we think it is like this. This might be a big mistake because sometimes we over-humanise animals. This can actually make things worse because animals behave differently from human beings and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.

This leads to very emotional responses to animal welfare issues, which can be inappropriate. On the other hand I think that scientists in general haven't really considered this issue enough. This has been a big mistake from the scientist's point of view, and it all comes down to a failure in communication. In general scientists are very reluctant to disseminate their findings and they don't give enough importance to that. That's why public perception of many things that should be based on science are instead more emotional. So it's mainly our fault that things like this are going on.