Precision Livestock Farming and Farmers’ Duties to Livestock

Recalibrating Veterinary Medicine through Animal Welfare Science and Ethics for the 2020s

“…Here, partnering in multidisciplinary teams made up of veterinarians, animal welfare scientists and others trained in animal and veterinary ethics and/or who have practical experience with animal care, can help veterinarians in their capacity as trusted animal advocates and health experts. Such partnerships can provide enlightened public and policy-maker support to better understand animal value chains, and pinpoint where gaps may lie at the local level, in order to come up with creative animal welfare solutions through scientific, technological, medical and policy innovations (for example, see [65]).…”

“…Veterinarians also have a crucial role to play in enhancing medical decision-making frameworks and ethical deliberation, since they may bring different substantive concerns and perspectives on how to arbitrate trade-offs between animal-human-environment conflicts. For example, veterinarians will bring their clinical experiences and perspectives regarding animal health, biological functioning, affective states, distress and behavior and professional view of respect and care towards animal life to address topics such as prophylactic depopulation or emergency measures to protect uninfected animals and the livelihoods of farmers, or limiting antimicrobial usage to promote good outcomes for animals, the public health, future populations and the environment (fewer pollutants and less residue) [65,76,77]. Central to these deliberations will be an acumen to recognize and identify key ethical concerns around questionable practices and procedures in veterinary medicine.…”

“…The advent of precision monitoring technologies (PMTs) together with heightened computer processing power and sensor technologies have provided companion animal caregivers, agriculture and food industries with the ability to collect and store large amounts of data on animals. Precision animal monitoring devices are essentially networked technologies that continuously monitor and manage individual animals automatically via algorithms and compare this information to expected production, behavioral and animal welfare benchmarks [65,79]. In the case of animal agriculture, for example, precision livestock farming (PLF) data can be used to improve the efficiency and sustainability of various animal industries [80] and hold the promise of improved animal welfare (e.g., [81][82][83]).…”

“…Developers often extol the benefits of minimal human interaction with certain animals as a plus of these technologies. However, this displacement of manual attention and care already poses an ethical challenge for farmers [65,79], but at the same time may help animals in places where there are unqualified workers. Also, veterinarians would be required to have the requisite training to properly use or interface with the technology, interpret the continuous stream of data and apply it in a way that promotes animal welfare and positive human-animal relationships.…”

“…Some knowledge in computer programming would benefit the veterinarian. Another concern involves making sure that these technologies do not take the place of good husbandry, animal care or conceal ways in which animals communicate their needs and preference to their caregivers [65,79,85]. From an ethical perspective, it is vital that such technologies do not relegate animals further to the status of undifferentiated commodities, unfamiliar to the caregivers as sentient beings with rich psychological experiences.…”