Whole Foods Steps Up Animal Welfare...

Whole Foods is rolling out a new marketing scheme costumed as an animal welfare rating system. This consumer guidance is supposed to promote “transparency” about how farm animals are raised before ending up in the Whole Foods meat case. Developed by Global Animal Partnership, this system highlights which “step” in the “5 Step Program” for which a meat product qualifies. The horribly non-descript program title, The Five Step Program, aims to quantify a scale of practices (Steps 1 – Step 5+) farmers can employ to ‘improve’ animal welfare on their farm.

Developed by Whole Foods and organizations like the Humane Society of the United States, this rating system has a sole focus on how well the animal was treated when they were raised…but what value does that add for the consumer? For a consumer who is dedicated to animal welfare, maybe this rating system will have meaning. But for the consumer who truly cares about the bigger picture of 'sustainable' agriculture, knowing their farmer and treating the soil well, this labeling system doesn’t mean much. And for the eager, rookie Whole Foods shopper looking for guidance from product labels…this is just another opportunity to greenwash large-scale agriculture and make these products look better than they are.

Here are The Five Steps (with a pinch of cynicism on the side)

Step 1: No Crates. No Cages. No Crowding.

Well, that is a good first step, isn’t it? Let’s be a little more specific though. Are they referring to no cages in an indoor egg laying facility or a free-love pasture based experience? Often pasture-raised broilers (chickens raised for meat) are raised in large outdoor pens, necessarily “caged off” from the elements and predators. Sure, a good first step…but wouldn’t we expect a product at WF to already meet this standard? Even better, this Step is labeled with the color orange - not the screaming STOP! of red - undoubtedly and industry friendly color choice.

Step 2: Enriched Environment?

Let’s be a little bit more specific about what environment is ‘enriched’. This only refers to the living space of the animal being raised. The WF website has simplified this to “a bale of straw for chickens to hide behind and climb on, a bowling ball for pigs to manipulate and shove around, or a few sturdy objects for cattle to rub against when they need a good scratch.” I’m all for providing animals with a more hospitable living environment, but I am equally (if not more so) concerned about proper and effective stewardship of the physical environment, like soil and water. Unfortunately, the simple title of this Step easily misconstrues an enriched physical environment which is lacking entirely from this Five Step Program.

Step 3: Enhanced Outdoor Access.

Wow! This sounds a lot like the debate about outdoor access in the National Organic Standards. Could it be that other ‘consumer education systems’ are addressing these issues, or at least trying to. Do we need another system?

Step 4: Pasture Centered
See Step 3 above, and add a little confusion.

Step 5: Animal Centered: All physical alterations prohibited

There’s a reason certain ‘physical alterations’ take place, and not all are bad. Many, like tail docking in sheep, are performed for long term animal health, sanitation and safety of the animal and done within one day of birth. This step is a bit over-reaching, and may not serve farmers in the long-run. Should this really be toward the top of the goals?

Step 5+: Animal Centered: Entire life on same farm.

Baby chicks are often sent through the mail to farms in the first 1-3 days after hatching, as hatching your own on the farm is hardly reliable. Cow-calf farms exist solely to focus on the birth and rearing of calves. New farmer often purchase young animals (sheep, goats, pigs) to get experience in raising animals before beginning to breed them. Sure, transporting animals can be traumatic for animals and humans alike. A one-farm lifespan is a humane opportunity to offer for an animal, but as the highest step in this system, what is it conveying to the consumer? The Global Animal Partnership definition of “entire life” also includes slaughter. On-farm slaughter opportunities are great, but very hard to come by. With about only 10 mobile red-meat processing facilities and challenging USDA and state regulations for on-site processing of poultry…this is a hard step to enact.

So where does that lead us? In my opinion, Global Animal Partnership’s Five Step Program is a well-crafted scheme to fool consumers into thinking there is a value-added component to the semi-industrial meat they are buying…while also soothing animal welfare advocates that improvements can be made in the industrial food system. There is an abundance of labeling and certification schemes with dubious interpretations...here's one more. Although I applaud their step system that encourages farmers to move in the 'right direction', the only true motivation will be increased revenue. So Whole Foods must be providing an adequate financial incentive (read: pay farmers a higher price for their meat) to implement these often more expensive practices.

Bottom line? The best step is to support the kind of agriculture where you can meet your farmer and your food…to see just how well they are treated in the field.