As submitted by Talamh Beo December 2025
Talamh Beo welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the development of the Animal Welfare Strategy 2026–2030. In preparing this submission, we have considered the five themes of the 2021–2025 Strategy, as well as the Department’s overarching Statement of Strategy 2023–2026 — in particular Strategic Objective 1.3 and the Appendix’s alignment with Programme for Government commitments.
The five existing themes — Working in Partnership; Science and Evidence-Led Policy-Making; Improving Education and Knowledge; Consistent Evaluation and Assessment; and An Effective Regulatory System — all remain relevant. However, they do not on their own address the systemic conditions shaping welfare outcomes: farm economics, processing infrastructure, veterinary access, labour conditions, stocking intensity, breed selection, and long-distance transport.
For these reasons, Talamh Beo proposes adding three cross-cutting themes:
These themes strengthen the original framework and ensure alignment with Ireland’s wider commitments on welfare, climate, biodiversity and rural development.
The remainder of this submission expands on these themes in detail.
The 2021–2025 Strategy made important progress by articulating a clear ethical ambition: that every animal in Ireland should have “a life worth living”. This provided a mandate for thinking beyond minimal compliance and acknowledging that animal welfare is shaped by the full environment surrounding an animal — physical, social, ecological, and human. The Strategy also broadened the policy frame through “One Health, One Welfare”, which helped situate animal welfare within interlinked concerns such as public health, environmental care and community wellbeing.
We welcome the Strategy’s recognition that welfare is not only the responsibility of farmers but is shared across society. The emphasis on education, partnership and evidence-based policy created new opportunities for cultural change within the agricultural system. In particular, the focus on farm inspections, knowledge transfer, and public engagement helped open conversations that had long been siloed.
However, the success of the previous Strategy was greatest where it supported farming systems that already embed good welfare by design — low-density, pasture-based and mixed farms where animals are handled regularly, observed closely, and live in environments aligned with their biology. These are the farm types where the Strategy’s broad principles most naturally translated into everyday practice. The next Strategy should build upon this strength: recognise where welfare flourishes, understand why, and support the systems that enable it.
While the previous Strategy set a strong ethical tone, it did not sufficiently address the structural pressures that undermine welfare in Ireland’s contemporary food system. Good intentions cannot overcome the realities of low farm-gate prices, labour shortages, long-distance supply chains, limited local processing capacity, and the dominance of industrial models of production.
A major shortcoming was the Strategy’s lack of differentiation between fundamentally different farming systems. Intensive, high-density, confinement-based systems produce inherently different welfare outcomes compared to extensive, low-input or mixed systems. Treating these systems as equivalent obscures the structural nature of welfare problems and prevents targeted solutions.
The next Strategy must also confront practices that are widely understood to cause severe and predictable animal stress:
These issues cannot be addressed solely by minor adjustments or voluntary measures. They require clear, time-bound commitments for phase-out and system redesign.
A further area needing stronger action is slaughterhouse welfare. Ireland’s over-reliance on a small number of large processing plants results in long travel distances, rushed handling, and line speeds that limit humane oversight. Worker welfare in these facilities — often characterised by low pay, precarious contracts, and physically demanding conditions — directly affects animal treatment. High-quality animal welfare requires high-quality, fairly paid labour.
Ireland is at a crossroads. The coming decade will require transformative changes in land use, climate mitigation, biodiversity restoration and rural development. These shifts bring both risks and opportunities for animal welfare.
A core challenge is the economic vulnerability of farmers, especially those in small, mixed and extensive systems who already provide some of Ireland’s best welfare outcomes. If these farms continue to face declining incomes and rising input costs, the result will be more consolidation, fewer farmers, and greater reliance on high-throughput industrial systems where welfare is more difficult to secure.
There is also the challenge of infrastructure imbalance: too few local processors, too many long-distance journeys, and too much dependence on export-driven supply chains. These factors create welfare risks at every stage — from stress during loading and transport to rushed handling in overcrowded plants.
Yet Ireland also has unique opportunities. Our climate and landscape are naturally suited to extensive grazing, diverse grasslands, silvopasture and agroecological mixed farming. These systems support natural behaviours, reduce disease pressure, cut antibiotic use, and anchor thriving rural communities.
There is a growing public expectation that animals should experience real quality of life — access to outdoors, social interaction, space, enrichment, and low-stress handling. Irish farmers who are already delivering these outcomes should be supported and recognised, not pushed aside by economic models that reward volume over care.
The shift toward shorter supply chains, regional processing, and local food systems also offers opportunities to build resilient, welfare-centred models that benefit animals, farmers, workers and communities simultaneously.
Improving welfare in a lasting way requires system-level change, not only incremental regulatory adjustments. The Strategy should commit to transforming the conditions under which animals are raised, transported and processed.
A central priority is to support and expand farming systems where welfare is structurally embedded: low-density, pasture-based, mixed and agroecological systems where animals live in conditions aligned with their natural instincts. Public funding should recognise the welfare, biodiversity and climate benefits these farms provide.
Equally important is a decisive movement away from systems that are inherently incompatible with good welfare. Cages, crates, extreme confinement, and genetically standardised fast-growing breeds cannot provide the behavioural freedom or environmental quality that modern welfare standards demand. Ireland should adopt a roadmap to phase out such systems entirely, accompanied by transitional supports for farmers who wish to shift toward more humane systems.
Another priority is to overhaul the infrastructure of animal processing. Investment in small and medium-sized abattoirs, mobile slaughter units, community-based processing, and regional chill and cut facilities will significantly reduce transport distances and stress. Stronger enforcement — including continuous CCTV monitoring, reduced line speeds, and frequent unannounced inspections — is essential to ensuring humane handling at slaughter.
Worker welfare must also become a core pillar of animal welfare policy. Fair pay, secure contracts, adequate staffing levels and comprehensive training in humane handling should be required throughout processing. A fatigued or underpaid workforce cannot deliver high standards of care.
Animal welfare will only improve through genuine partnership with those who work most closely with animals. Farmers need to be involved not just as recipients of regulation but as co-designers of solutions. Small-scale, mixed and extensive farmers — who already exemplify high welfare practices — should have formal roles in shaping policy, monitoring progress and designing advisory supports.
Collaboration should extend beyond farms to include rural communities, processors, workers, veterinarians, researchers and citizens. The establishment of a National Animal Welfare Forum would provide a structured space for ongoing discussion, transparency and co-creation, enabling policy to evolve in response to real-world conditions.
Knowledge exchange is another vital area. Farmer-to-farmer learning, on-farm demonstration and locally grounded training programmes will be more effective than top-down technical instruction. Advisory services should be reoriented to support agroecological practices, low-stress handling, pasture-based systems, and system-level welfare improvements.
Finally, DAFM can deepen collaboration by recognising the link between welfare and economics. Policies that support fair farm-gate prices, local markets, diversified processing, and decent working conditions across the food chain will create the enabling environment in which good welfare becomes the norm rather than the exception.
Animal welfare is not simply a technical issue — it is a reflection of the food system we choose to build. Ireland now has the opportunity to design a Strategy that moves beyond managing problems toward creating farming systems where animals, farmers, workers and ecosystems all thrive. The 2026–2030 Strategy should be a transformative document, phasing out the poorest practices, strengthening the best, and addressing the economic and infrastructural drivers at the heart of welfare outcomes.
Talamh Beo is committed to working in partnership with DAFM and rural communities to help realise this transition.
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