The mental health of people who work with farm animals is linked to the welfare conditions they operate in.
The mental health of farm workers and slaughterhouse employees is deeply linked to the welfare conditions they operate in. Research shows that workers required to kill animals at high speed, or to ignore obvious animal suffering due to economic constraints, develop symptoms of PTSD and moral injury. Farmers who care about their animals but cannot afford welfare improvements experience significant distress. This creates a compelling argument for welfare improvement that goes beyond animal wellbeing: better animal welfare conditions correlate with better worker mental health, lower turnover, and higher food safety standards.