The animal welfare charity is urging us to buy food with its ethical label so it can expand its scheme for better farm animal welfare.
The RSPCA has criticised current farm animal welfare laws and urged us to buy products that meet its Freedom Food standards so it can increase the number of farms under the scheme.
Their statement comes with the issue of farm animal welfare firmly back in the public eye following the apparent suicide of pig farmer Stephen Brown after workers at his farm were accused of horrific cruelty.
The RSPCA says that legal farming practices still allow the following:
- Injuries to animals from being kept on bare concrete or slatted floors
- Genetically selected fast growing breeds of meat chickens suffering from lameness, leg deformities and heart failure
- Hens being kept in so-called ‘enriched’ battery cages with less usable space than an A4 sheet of paper each
To meet the RSPCA's Freedom Food criteria, animals need to have “an environment that meets their needs – needs not confined to space, food and water but psychological needs too”.
The RSPCA says the number of farm animals that live in conditions that meet its Freedom Food welfare standards has increased by 52% over the past five years.
And the amount of Freedom Food-labelled products in supermarkets has increased by 30% in the past two years. There are now nearly 900 products on sale.
The most recent Co-operative Ethical Consumerism Report found that sales of ethical food and drink increased by 5.1% in 2010, despite the economic downturn.
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