Industrial Animal Farming and Zoonotic Risk: COVID-19 as a Gateway to Sustainable Change? A Scoping Study

Abstract

The threat of zoonoses (i.e., human infectious diseases transmitted from animals) because of industrial animal farming may be receiving less attention in society due to the putative wildlife origin of COVID-19. To identify societal responses to COVID-19 that do address or affect the risk of future zoonoses associated with industrial animal farming, the literature was screened for measures, actions, proposals and attitudes following the guidelines of a scoping review. Forty-one articles with relevant information published between 1 January 2020 and 30 April 2021 were identified directly or indirectly via bibliographies from 138 records retrieved via Google Scholar. Analysis of relevant content revealed ten fields of policy action amongst which biosecurity and change in dietary habits were the dominant topics. Further searches for relevant records within each field of policy action retrieved another eight articles. Identified responses were furthermore classified and evaluated according to groups of societal actors, implying different modes of regulation and governance. Based on the results, a suggested policy strategy is presented for moving away from food production in factory farms and supporting sustainable farming, involving the introduction of a tax on the demand side and subsidies for the development and production of alternative meat.

Agribusiness and the COVID-19 syndemic: The unsustainable pathways

“…Destabilising the ecological balance may thus promote emerging pathogens (see #2 in Figure 1). Food production has undergone a huge transformation towards intensification and industrialization after World War II [14]. Industrial production of poultry, eggs, pork and so on is now often organised in factory farms, with thousands of animals living in close proximity.…”

Mitigating Zoonotic Risks in Intensive Farming: Solutions for a Sustainable Change

“…Epidemiologists advised, among others, to reduce the number of animals held and to facilitate a transition to products that do not involve their rearing and butchering (Bekedam et al 2021). Importantly, given the direct public health problems and externalities involved in the production of conventional animal meat, dairy, and eggs, governments should stop subsidizing this industry and start subsidizing and stimulating protein alternatives instead (Brozek and Falkenberg 2021;Schuck-Paim 2020;Wiebers and Feigin 2020).…”

Avoiding unnecessary suffering: Towards a moral minimum standard for humans' responsibility for animal welfare

“…Factory farming (or mass husbandry)—which comprises approximately 99% of the animal industry in the USA (Reese, 2019) and also by far the largest percentage of the equivalent European industry (Jäggi, 2021)—does not, for the most part, prioritize animal welfare. Within the debate on corporate responsibility, animal welfare is principally discussed from an anthropocentric standpoint, which emphasizes the negative impact factory farming has on the climate and global warming (Gerber et al, 2013), on the spread and mutation of pathogens and zoonotic pandemics (Brozek & Falkenberg, 2021), on food quality and related human health issues, or, more generally, on the interconnectedness of humans' wellbeing and the wellbeing of natural ecosystems (Shrivastava & Zsolnai, 2022). In the light of this interconnectedness, in which animals are a crucial part of the natural ecosystem, Lever and Evans (2017, p. 216) consider animal welfare as “a systematic risk that is not properly understood in terms of the threats it poses to the achievement of sustainable development—and wider threats to animal, human and environmental health.” However, morally justifying humans' responsibility for increased animal welfare, for the sake of animals' wellbeing and the absence of pain in itself, seems to be something of an exception to this debate.…”