15 July 2024

Animal Protection Denmark

On June 24 the Danish government, along with several organisations, created an “Agreement on a Green Denmark”: a plan to make the farming sector more climate- and environmentally-friendly. However, several NGOs, including our members Animal Protection Denmark and World Animal Protection Denmark, have pointed out this agreement falls far short in achieving a more sustainable food and farming system, and have signed an open letter calling on the government to rethink its plans.

To make our food and farming systems fit for the future, it’s critical there is a higher uptake in plant-based diets and that less animals are farmed, while only in high welfare conditions. As evidence has repeatedly shown, the issues of animal welfare and sustainability go hand in hand, as poor animal husbandry can lead to the spread of zoonoses, animals being farmed in huge numbers, and more.

Unfortunately, while it does have some ambition, Denmark’s new agreement does not come close to improving the problems of large scale industrial animal production. 

Instead of reducing the size of the livestock sector, the agreement wants to “optimise” how animals are farmed

Denmark produces about 200 million farm animals per year – in a country of only five million people. 

Rather than reducing the number of animals being farmed, however, the agreement suggests the way they are farmed should be revised, and offers funding to explore such “innovations”: for instance, by offering a 60% base deduction and several subsidies for technologies that can reduce emissions from livestock production. 

Not only could this incentive enable farmers to continue farming animals in the same numbers – doing nothing to address the low welfare and unsustainable factory farming model in which billions of sentient beings suffer each year – but it could mean animals suffer even more in these systems:

Animals will be put under even more pressure due to climate technologies and demands for higher productivity. The idea is to make each animal deliver as much as possible, e.g. even more piglets from sows, and even higher milk yields from cows, as is considered good for the climate, and to address specific issues such as methane from cow digestion with feed additives.

Britta Riis – Director, Animal Protection Denmark

Plant-based solutions are being neglected

What is more, an unequal level of support is being offered to farm animal producers in the agreement, while plant producers and innovators are being overlooked.

Whether intended or not, this disparity in incentives sends a clear message: that the animal agriculture sector has a strong role to play in the future of farming, while plant-based products are less important. Really, the opposite is true.

Open letter calls for the agreement to be revised urgently

Several NGOs, including our members Animal Protection Denmark and World Animal Protection, alongside organisations like Greenpeace and the Danish Vegetarian Association, have signed an open letter to the Danish government, arguing that the current agreement does not provide a reliable way forward for a greener farming model. 

The letter states that wanting to optimise animal production is like wanting to optimise the use of oil, coal, and gas – it’s not possible. Such incentives will only draw focus further away from the solutions that will have real impact – chief among them, a big reduction in the number of animals being farmed.  

The urgent climate crisis calls for an ambitious approach to our food and farming systems, with real structural changes required in the sector. Stay posted for updates.

 

Regards Mark