The relationship between animal welfare improvement and global food security is complex, with higher welfare sometimes coexisting with improved efficiency.
Animal welfare and food security are often framed as opposing goals, but the relationship is more nuanced. Poor welfare outcomes including disease, stress, and pain reduce animal productivity, meaning welfare improvements often improve food production efficiency. The genuine tension arises from space-intensive welfare improvements: outdoor access for pigs and meaningful enrichment for poultry require land resources that are constrained globally. The food security argument for accepting poor welfare must be weighed against evidence that plant-based food systems can feed more people on less land than animal-based systems, even when animals are given higher welfare conditions.