Think twice on links to Business Benchmark on Animal Welfare: Rick Wilson

In recent weeks, the National Farmers Federation has called for supermarket chains and other retailers to rethink any links they have to a group called the Business Benchmark on Animal Welfare.

This UK-based group has a slick-looking website and presents itself as an objective arbiter of member companies’ commitment to animal welfare.

It does this primarily by its annual survey of companies’ policies and practices on farm animal welfare.

This survey is far from objective, however. And hats off to the National Farmers Federation for recognising that the devil in such information-gathering exercises is always in the detail.

A consultation paper released by the Business Benchmark on Animal Welfare proposes that its current 37-question survey be expanded to 51 questions, including eight new ones assessing commitment to reducing reliance on animal-sourced foods.

The planned inclusion of so many new questions on just one topic reveals an obsession with reducing the amount of meat produced by Australian farmers, and demonstrates what a radical force this single-issue activist group is.

The notion that we need to cut demand for Australia’s high quality, ethically grown, animal‑based foods runs counter to Australian community sentiment and is not in the best interests of Australia’s world-leading farmers.

We need only to look at recent peer-reviewed research to determine that.

A 2018 study by Buddle, Bray and Ankeny found that meat consumers dismissed online animal welfare activism due to a perceived lack of credibility and being associated with a vegetarian or vegan agenda.

Meat consumers considered activists to be ignorant, and suggested they needed to experience animal farming first-hand.

In 2021, the same authors studied Australian livestock producers’ understanding of issues related to farm animal welfare. The researchers concluded there will always be people who oppose the production and consumption of meat, but “there are many more who consume meat as part of their diets and who … nonetheless see the welfare of meat-producing animals as being of paramount importance”.

The authors observed that “focusing on these shared values and establishing areas of commonality between producers and the broader community” could help “to provide more effective pathways for improving the conversation about how to produce meat humanely and how animal welfare practices can continue to evolve and improve”.

This is a key point because, as the National Farmers Federation argues, food retailers should work with their suppliers and their customers to further the cause of animal welfare, not with extremist lobby groups based on the other side of the world.

As a wheat-and-sheep farmer myself before entering Federal politics, I know how much Australian farmers care for their animals. It’s almost a truism to say that the animals come first, because our lives and livelihoods depend upon them. But that doesn’t make it any less true.

The nation’s meat farmers perform an essential service by bringing high-protein food to the tables of Australian families. And Australian meat is widely exported, which is good for the nation’s balance of payments.

I’d urge all food retailers to eschew any third-party assessment scheme run by agenda‑pushing groups who have the support of neither farmers nor the Australian community.

The hard-line activism behind such schemes has little to no credibility with Australians.

The nation’s discerning consumers have rejected attempts to ram radical dogma down their throats.

Participating in ratings schemes run by lobbyists with an axe to grind will not impress customers and hence are not in the best interests of food retailers.

Rick Wilson is the Federal Member for O’Connor in WA and the shadow assistant trade minister